Alistair nods against Cullen's shoulder. He's silent for a moment, thinking.

"The night before we met up at the hold," he murmurs, "when we were in the Basin. I stayed up late. Not too late," he's quick to amend. "But late enough to watch all the stars come out. This great ribbon of them you could see winding over the trees, this little sliver of a moon off to one side...and everything smelled green. There was all this life all around us. Sure, some of that life was gurguts and spiders, but in that moment you wouldn't have known it."

Smiling, slightly: "And in the middle of all that I knew I'd be seeing you soon. It's -- a moment that's stuck with me for some time now."