#intergalactic au

"The beaches on Earth are quite dangerous," she says as she holds a mug in her hands, walking along the pathway. He figures she's probably right about that. The beach she takes him to is like crystallized sand, smoothed over by the water so that it feels like glass. When the waves curl up against his feet, the water is warm and frothy at the edge of his sandals. Alteans aren't dressed the same way that he'd have dressed to go to the beach, but many of them sit with their families.

Shiro's attention is mostly focused on Allura, though. She leads them along the outer ring of the beach, still clutching her gelsok from earlier. She'd treated him to the drink, an Altean variant on coffee—it contained a bittersweet caffeine, a liberal amount of honey, yet somehow maintained the consistency of gelatin—and he'd found it more enjoyable than he could have pictured. He imagines hers is still slightly warm, though she pokes at it with her tongue when she lifts it to her mouth.

"You all have some sort of reflection cream for the sun? And apparently, some humans intentionally let the sun burn their skin. That can't be healthy, can it?" Shiro barely notices it, but Allura's voice is heavy with vowel sounds and soft with consonants. Her English is so much better than the broken Altean he'd spoken to her in an attempt to ask her a simple question.

If he had known that he was going to be treated to a tour of the area, he'd have considered asking with a bit more confidence and not with his face partially hidden behind a map of the area. Especially if he knew that he'd be walking on the beach with Allura, watching the wind pick up the soft lilac of her dress and sweep through her hair, waves of white as smooth as the beach sand beneath his feet.

Shiro laughs. "Some people do really enjoy tanning. It makes their skin a little darker." His eyes glance over at her unconsciously, at the bare skin of her shoulders and arms and lithe, slender legs. He doesn't want to fawn over her so openly, but he thinks he may understand a little why Altean women are known for their beauty.

Though, he wouldn't know very much. Shiro hasn't been able to take his eyes off of Allura since he met her.

"You know," she says with a laugh in her voice, "when you came up to me, I didn't think you were going to ask me out."

If he'd had a mouth full of gelsok, he might have choked on it in that moment. Shiro stops walking for a fraction of a second, but then skips to catch up with her, his eyes watering from coughing. "I was trying to ask you for the date."

Allura smiles, the one that reaches her eyes. Shiro melts, but then remembers his bearings. "You asked me for a date. Not the date." She tries to mask her laugh, but Shiro can see her shoulders shaking and he knows better than that.

He brings his hand up to his forehead and rubs his temples between his fingertips. "Not that this wasn't great, but I'm sorry. You must have had something else to do today and I just—"

"You're fine, Shiro. My English wasn't always that great, but I had decades to get better at it. You certainly haven't had such time to practice, and in Altean much less." Shiro feels his eyes widen but Allura keeps speaking. "Besides, time as a concept on Altea is slightly different on Earth. Dates are almost meaningless, but Father taught me a lot when we used to travel more frequently. On Earth right now—hm, I think it's the first month of the year."

He figures she's probably right about that. Shiro tries to imagine January back on Earth and ultimately comes to the conclusion that it couldn't be anything like Altea, even in the parts of the Earth that are warm in the beginning of the year. "So, is there a way to ask the date in Altean?"

Allura glances over at him and her gaze makes his stomach do a small flip. What she says next is an unintelligible string of words in Altean that sound remotely like a language, but nothing that he can pick out of each phrase. He stares at her blankly for several seconds until she laughs, tapping him on his shoulder to shake him from his reverie.

"It's fine, Shiro. Besides," she says, her hand still resting on his shoulder, "I'll see you tomorrow. You don't need to know the date for that."