AN: After some initial tension about "elfiiness", Solas and Aili come to an understanding.
Rated: K, everything is safe and fluffy here.
It was an hour or so after dawn and Solas had just finished the unpleasant business of bathing himself with the icy water in his wash basin. He supposed he could have used his magic to make the water an acceptable temperature, but between the number of Templars milling about Haven and his already precarious position within the newly founded Inquisition, it was safer not to risk it. He had just pulled on his trousers and was digging around for his tunic when the little elf girl the humans had been calling 'The Herald of Andraste' burst into his cabin.
"Good morning, Solas," she chirped, plunking down on his bed and taking a noisy bite out of an apple she had no doubt swiped from the kitchens.
"Do you mind?" he hissed in indignation, finally unearthing his sweater and using it to cover himself, glowering at her all the while.
"What? Oh, not really," she smiled at him carelessly, her violet eyes moving over his exposed skin, as though just noticing his lack of attire. "I imagine you don't have much I haven't seen before, so it doesn't bother me."
Solas muttered something darkly under his breath, turning away from her and tugging his shirt over his head.
"Was that Elvhen?" she asked excitedly, leaning forward eagerly, putting her elbows up on the footboard of his bed. "Fluent Elvhen? You speak it so differently from any Keeper I've ever met. Where did you learn it?"
"Do the Dalish not know how to knock?" he groused, turning back to her with his arms folded tightly across his chest, his mouth creased in a firm line of disapproval.
"My, someone certainly isn't a morning person," she laughed. "And no, Dalish don't knock, everything is shared, including spaces. If you really want to be alone, you just leave camp. I heard you moving around in here and your door was unlocked, so I assumed you wouldn't mind some company."
"That is a rather large assumption," he told her sternly. "I am accustomed to a fair amount of privacy, and it is usually considered common curtesy to make yourself known before entering what you know to be someone else's room."
"Sorry if I offended you and your hermit ways," she said with thinly veiled amusement, "but if you really wanted to keep people out, why didn't you just lock the door?"
Solas heaved a grating sigh.
"Enough. It is done. I ask only that it does not happen again," he said in a clipped tone. "Was there something you needed from me, Herald?"
"Aili," she corrected him, making a face at the unwanted title. "It's bad enough that the humans are calling me that, I don't need it from one of my own, too."
"I am not 'one of your own'," he informed her.
"You're an elf, aren't you?" she asked, smirking at him and cocking her head slightly to one side.
"And decidedly not Dalish," he reminded her.
"So what?" she asked, blinking at him in confusion. "Does that change the way the humans treat you? Does that change our history or our heritage? Do you really think that because I bear these vallaslin the only thing we have in common is the shape of our ears?"
Solas was quiet for a moment, contemplating this strange woman who had barged into is cabin, not quite sure what to make of her.
"You…you don't like me very much, do you?" she asked, sounding a trifle wounded at his silence.
"What makes you say that?" he asked, genuinely surprised.
"Well…for someone Varric named, 'Chuckles', you don't laugh very much when I'm around," she noted.
"Varric has a penchant for ironic nicknames," Solas told her with a derisive snort. "I might point out that I doubt you have heard me laugh much around anyone. It hardly seems the time, with the war between mages and Templars raging across Thedas, and a massive tear in the Veil spewing demons everywhere."
"Fair enough," she conceded, "but you still don't like me. You don't like the fact that I'm Dalish, and that I'm proud of where I come from. You judge me based on your dealings with my people, with clans whom you've admitted likely follow alternate customs and foster different moralities than my own."
"Is your clan so divergent?" he asked, a trace of bitterness sharpening his tone. "Are they possessed of a hidden wealth of knowledge and acceptance that your fellows lack?"
"I don't know," Aili shrugged at him, offering up a lopsided smile. "But you could find out."
"What…are you suggesting precisely?" he queried with a raised brow.
"You said we wouldn't listen to the truth," she said, taking another bite out of her apple and grinning at him. "So, that's what I'm here to do: listen."
"And…you would simply accept the word of a flat-ear? …you would believe what I have seen during my journeys in the Fade?" he asked doubtfully.
"I never said that," Aili said bluntly, shaking her head. "I said I would listen. Keeper Deshanna always said, 'Wisdom cannot be simply handed to you by another, Da'len. You must listen, and then you must find the truth in what you have heard for yourself, through study and contemplation. But first you must always listen.'"
"The words of a sensible woman," Solas commented approvingly. He stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment before nodding his agreement. "Very well, what would you like to know?"
"Everything!" Aili exclaimed, scooching even farther down the bed so that she was sitting as close to him as possible.
Solas laughed. Aili beamed triumphantly.
"Ha!" she crowed. "You can laugh!"
"I never said I couldn't," he said, with the remnants of a smile still playing about his lips. "However, I fear it may take me a while to teach you everything, Da'len."
He frowned slightly in embarrassment afterwards, his eyes darting away from her, "I apologize, I should not have called you-"
"I like it!" She cut him off, grinning broadly. "It's better than being 'The Herald of Andraste' at any rate, and it's worth it if it actually gets you to live up to your nickname."
He gave her a dubious glance.
"I hardly think that sharing my knowledge with you is going to transform me into some giddy sniggering simpleton." He told her flatly.
"Never say never, Hahren!" she chuckled confidently.
Solas rolled his eyes at her, but found himself smiling despite himself. Her good humor was astoundingly infectious. He opened his mouth to begin their first lesson when Cassandra's commanding voice cut through the crisp morning air, searching for the woman with the fated mark on her hand.
"Looks like we're out of time for today," Aili sighed in obvious disappointment, getting up from the bed and heading towards the door.
"Da'len?" Solas called after her uncertainly. She turned back to face him, her gaze expectant, her face visibly brightening at the new moniker. Her obvious partiality for the name was surprisingly endearing, and he found himself tripping over his next sentence. "You may come by tomorrow morning to talk, if you are so inclined. Just…knock first."
"I'll be here!" Aili promised enthusiastically as she walked out the door.
"Oh, and Hahren?" she said, poking her head back inside to look at him. "Feel free to answer the door in whatever state of dress you'd like. Believe me when I say, you have nothing to be embarrassed about."
She took one last bite out of her apple, flashed him a toothy smile, and disappeared out into the bright morning.
Solas felt a faint heat creeping up his cheeks after she left, and when he caught the eye of his reflection in the small chipped looking glass they'd given him, he was grinning from ear to ear.