"I'm still surprised I'm not dead," Alistair agreed.

But then... Then he made a choice. He started unbuckling the upper cuffs of his gloves, pulled them off, and tucked them into his belt. And then he was reaching toward Cullen, drawing him to face him. "C'mere. Let me show you. It's not perfect, but it helped me when my withdrawal was at its worst. Nobody tells the story about how Warden Alistair projectile vomited on the feet of the Archdemon, but trust me: it happened. But I figured this out with Wynne's help. She thought I just had really bad headaches, so she taught me this... thing..."

Once he could, he began placing his fingers at certain places on Cullen's face. Thumb at the bridge of his nose, middle finger at his temple, forefinger at the top of his eyebrow. He arranged both hands like that and applied a light, careful pressure before beginnning to knead. "Little harder to do on yourself, but this is step one."