It's as frigid as ever in the Undercroft. Alistair always forgets until he's already down there, staring at the icicles and watching his breath steam in front of him. Dagna, bundled up at her workbench, glances over to give him a cheerful, if distracted, smile. "Hey, Alistair."

"Hello." He tucks his arms close to himself and takes a seat on the stairs.

It's a posture the dwarf's seen before -- the I'm having a bad day and need a moment posture -- so all she says, as kind as ever, is, "There's a couple blankets in the chest over there, whenever you want one."

"Thank you," he mumbles, and closes his eyes. Dagna returns to her work, humming softly under her breath; only the occasional snippet of melody rises above the wind whistling past the cavern's mouth.

Eventually, once he stops feeling like he's about to choke, he gets up to fetch one of the blankets. Dagna looks up again; offers another smile. "Want to see what I'm working on?" she asks.

It fascinates him, the way she works so diligently to learn about a thing she'll never be able to touch -- and Alistair knows she wouldn't offer to show him her latest project if she thought it might upset him. So, cautiously, he nods, and picks his way over to her workbench, the blanket wrapped around his shoulders like a royal mantle.

The panic, thus distracted, slinks away. A slow retreat, but a retreat nonetheless.

Some time later, he emerges: fingers and toes a bit numb, cheeks pinked from the cold. Time to find Cullen and make his apologies.