Work Text:
"La'u Samoa e… la'u Samoa e... fa'amuamua le atua oe o lo'u fa'avae..." Hunk sings as he digs through the kitchen cabinets, looking for the things he needs to make breakfast. "A o mai ini puapuaga… fa'amalosi tu mau pea… ou te alofa ia te oe la'u Samoa..."
"Are you singing a song from Earth?"
The unexpected interruption causes Hunk to hit his head on the top of the cabinet. He groans, then turns around and, upon seeing the Princess, raises one eyebrow. "Allura?" he says, more in question than in greeting, as it's almost half a varga earlier than it is when Allura usually wanders into the kitchen each morning.
"Hello, Hunk."
He's debating whether to ask what she's doing here so early or to scold her for sneaking up on him when he realizes that she's up and about and jumps into action. He's at her side in an instant, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and guiding her onto the island in the middle of the room.
"What are you doing out of bed, Princess?" he asks. "You should be resting! I mean, even Coran and Shiro aren't up yet!"
"Oh, Coran is awake. He's doing some routine maintenance on the castle, in fact. He stopped by my quarters to check on me before he got to it," Allura responds. "Although…" she adds, a conspiratorial smirk on her face, "I pretended to be asleep when he came in. I didn't want to get yelled at for being awake."
"You should get yelled at for being awake," Hunk retorts. "You saved an entire planet using nothing but your own life force. You need to rest."
"I did rest, Hunk," Allura argues, rolling her eyes good-naturedly and smiling softly at the Yellow Paladin. "I fell asleep not long after you all returned from the Karthulian System last quintant, so I got plenty of sleep. Besides," she adds, giggling as the mice scuttle into the kitchen and climb up her nightgown and into her lap, "my friends were getting antsy."
She strokes the fur atop Platt's head, then glances around the kitchen and frowns. "Speaking of friends, where is Shiro?" she asks. "I know Coran and I don't usually come into the kitchen for another thirty doboshes or so, but Shiro is usually already here when we arrive."
"I guess he's still sleeping," Hunk answers, shrugging. "I hope he is, anyway. He sleeps less than Pidge, and that's saying something."
"Shiro does need some rest," Allura agrees, still stroking Platt's fur. "I don't know how he's so alert and awake in the mornings when Coran and I come in here, honestly. I woke up in the middle of the night last quintant and saw him wandering the halls, still in his day clothes. He doesn't seem to sleep often, or well." She sighs, then tilts her head up to look Hunk in the eyes; Hunk meets her gaze, even though Allura's purple pupils still freak him out a bit. "You ought to sleep in some mornings, too, you know," she continues. "Coran would be more than happy to prepare breakfast if you would like to get some additional sleep."
"Well, uh, no offense, Princess," Hunk starts, a daring smirk creeping onto his face even as he raises his hands in a placating gesture, "but I don't trust Coran's cooking."
"He's an awful chef, isn't he?" Allura chuckles.
"Okay, wait a sec—uh, a tick," Hunk says. He schools his expression into something more neutral—his eyes had widened to the size of golf balls at Allura's reply—then continues. "You mean to tell me that Altean food isn't actually disgusting?"
"Oh, no, of course it's not!" Allura exclaims. She shakes her head no, then immediately squeezes her eyes shut and scrunches up her nose, reminding Hunk that, despite her composed demeanor, she's still unwell.
He places a hand on Allura's knee in a silent act of sympathy, then steps past her to grab a clean cloth from the countertop and run it underneath the warm sink water. He wrings the cloth out until it's only slightly damp, then gently lifts Allura's hair up and positions it along the base of her skull. "The heat should help with the headache," he explains.
When Allura grabs hold of the cloth, Hunk turns his back to her just long enough to grab a water pouch from the fridge. "Oh, and drink this," he adds, handing the pouch to her. "You get dehydrated when you overexert yourself, and since you just woke up, I'm assuming you haven't had anything to drink yet."
"You're assuming correctly. Thank you, Hunk," Allura responds, shooting him a grateful smile. She punches the straw into the water pouch and takes a sip, and the crease between her brows disappears. "Anyway," she continues, "Altean food isn't as bad as Coran's dishes imply. I'll admit that Altean dishes aren't as… elaborate as your creations, as Alteans typically eat only those foods with optimal nutritional value, but Altean food isn't bad. It's just sort of… plain."
"Well, I'm glad to hear that not all Altean food tastes like that one paladin lunch did," Hunk replies, shuddering at the thought of that so-called meal Coran had prepared for them that one time, "because I was thinking of cooking an Altean dish for breakfast today."
"Oh, what a lovely idea!" Allura exclaims. "Can you try making porytt? The castle-ship's chefs used to make it with bel and serve it with some lebenx, and—."
"What's porytt?"
"What?!" Allura cries. "You've never—ahh, right… silly me! I'm sorry, Hunk. Give me a tick."
Hunk chuckles. "Sure thing, Princess."
Allura retrieves her cell phone-like device from some pocket on her nightgown, then, a couple of button taps later, turns the device toward Hunk. He glances at it, head cocked.
"Well," he starts, chuckling again, "I only have the vaguest idea of what these words say, but this looks like grits, which is a dish we have on Earth. It was one of the dishes the cooks at the Garrison never screwed up, so… well, if porytt tastes as good as it looks, this would be great to serve!" He smiles at Allura, then frowns. "Oh, wait a sec. What's the, uh… lennox?"
"I believe you mean 'lebenx,'" Allura laughs. "It's a four-legged mammal, about the size of the Krellians you visited first, native to Rygnirath—the former Yellow Paladin's home planet—but popular on several other planets as well. The meat tastes differently depending on which part of the animal it was cut from, but the most popular cut is that of the upper leg. When people talk about lebenx meat, they're usually referring to meat cut from its upper leg."
"… sounds like a space pig," Hunk muses. "I wonder if it tastes like ham."
"Pig? Ham?"
He looks at Allura like she has two heads, then laughs. "I guess you're not the only one who forgets we're not from the same planet," he admits. "Anyway, do we have any of this, um… lebenx?"
"We might," Allura answers noncommittally. "I believe someone at the last market we stopped at was selling lebenx, but Coran was never a fan of its taste, so I don't know if he bought any. If he did, though, it'd be in the meat locker with the rest of the meat."
"Well, let's hope he bought some," Hunk responds. "I want to try this alien ham."
"I would like to have it, too," Allura adds. "It's been ten thousand years since I've had porytt, after all."
She and Hunk, after that, fall into a companionable silence reminiscent of every morning on the Castle of Lions thus far, and he almost forgets that Allura is even in the kitchen until she suddenly says his name.
"What's up, Princess?" he asks just as he finds a package lebenx meat.
"You never answered my question."
"What was it again?"
"I asked if that song you were singing when I walked in is a song from Earth. The words were not translating for me."
"Oh. Well, yeah," Hunk answers. "It's not an English song, though, so that's probably why the lyrics weren't translating. It's a Samoan song."
"Samoan?"
"Yeah, Samoan," Hunk affirms, chuckling at the way Allura butchered the pronunciation of the word. "It's one of the many languages people speak on Earth."
"I see," Allura replies. She strokes Platt's fur again as she considers this new information about Earth, then extends her hand toward Hunk. "Come here, Hunk," she half-commands, half-requests, a small smile gracing her dark features as she does so. "If it's not too much to ask, I'd like you to tell me about Samoan culture."
"Okay, but only if you promise to go back to bed after breakfast," Hunk responds. He sets the lebenx meat down on the countertop, then makes his way over to Allura. "I don't want to get yelled at by Coran for hindering your recovery!"
Allura nods and shakes Hunk's hand, but the smirk on her face tells him that she'll do whatever she damn well pleases, regardless of their agreement.
… which is exactly what Hunk expects from the Altean Princess.