Alistair laughs, low. "Nothing of the sort, I promise."

A soft pressure starts at the back of Cullen's wrist; moves upward, circling around it. Alistair's fingers brush against his pulse as he ties whatever it is into place.

"All right."

When Cullen opens his eyes, he'll see a small leather bracelet, perhaps an inch wide. Alistair's no craftsman: the paring could generously be called rough-hewn. The first and last third of it have been split into strands and braided to form the band.

The middle third...

That lays flat, and there's a small design carved into it with the same faintly clumsy earnestness as the rest of the bracelet. A series of half-arcs nest around each other like petals; two leaves frame either side.

It is, rather unmistakably, a rose.