Moon River

Allura walked by the commons room without looking in, on her way to get in some training before Keith started monopolizing the gladiator for the afternoon, when she heard the odd twang of an out of tune instrument.

She paused, then back tracked to peer into the room. Lance was sitting on the couch by himself, what seemed to be a Terbanian Zinthor on his lap. As far as she could tell, he was working very hard on trying to get it out of tune.

"That's not how that's supposed to sound," she offered.

Lance glanced up at her and smiled a bit lop-sidedly, "I know, but I think I can get it to sound like a guitar if I tune it right."

"An earth instrument?" she guessed, her interest peaked.

"Yeah," Lance picked at one of the strings, then adjusted the tuning peg, "I found it at that massive flea market we were at on the nasty swamp planet…"

"Firterian," Allura supplied the name for him, resisting the urge to roll her eyes and coming farther into the room.

"Right," Lance shrugged, strumming over all the cords together, then making another adjustment, "they all run together after a while, and we're never anywhere long enough for it to really matter."

Allura thought she heard some frustration there, but there wasn't much she could do about it. It was dangerous for them to stay anywhere for too long, not just for them, but for the native peoples. Voltron attracted a lot of attention after all.

"Anyway," Lance continued, "I found this, and it looks like a guitar, and it kind of sounds like one, just really, really out of tune."

Allura almost told him that it had probably sounded like it was supposed to before he had started playing around with it, but decided against it. If taking instruments out of tune kept Lance out of trouble and from annoying people for a while, she wasn't going to stop him.

"I didn't have you figured for a musician," she said instead, taking a seat beside him on the circular couch.

"Music was a big deal with my parents," Lance picked through the strings, and seeming to be satisfied with the sound, began to play a melody, "they thought it was part of a well-rounded education, so we all had to learn piano whether we wanted to or not."

"Piano?" Allura asked curiously.

"It's…" Lance frowned, pausing in his playing, his brow wrinkling as he tried to figure out how to describe it, "it's technically a percussion instrument, but it's kind of a cross between a percussion instrument and a string instrument, and it's usually too big to take anywhere with you. Pidge might have some piano tracks somewhere, although that's not really her thing."

"Hmm, I'll have to ask her," Allura leaned back more comfortably, gesturing to the instrument in Lance's lap, "that's not a piano though."

"No," Lance shrugged and went back to playing, "we all had to learn piano, then we had to pick a second instrument. Guitars aren't that hard to learn the basics of, although it takes a while to get good at them, and they're portable. Plus girls like them."

He smirked up at her, and she rolled her eyes. She was coming to understand that Lance flirted the same way he teased, mostly affectionately, and with very little intent.

"I had to learn a handful of instruments as part of my education," Allura admitted, "I was never particularly skilled at it. I find I enjoy listening to music much more than playing it."

"Yeah, so does Pidge," Lance changed to a slower melody, "she has tons of music stored on her laptop, but she doesn't play anything."

Allura made a mental note to ask Pidge if she could borrow some of her music next time she saw her. There were certain aspects of form and pattern that seemed fairly universal, but music across the universe was remarkably diverse. Or perhaps it was the continuity that made it remarkable. No matter where she went, and regardless of whether she actually liked it or not, music was always identifiable as music. It would be nice to hear what that sounded like on her paladins' home planet.

The song Lance was playing was actually quite pretty, and Allura listened for a while in comfortable silence. Lance seemed more interested in playing then talking, so she didn't interrupt him. Shiro had told her that Lance was actually quite focused in combat situations, but she had to admit, she had trouble imagining Lance being focused or serious about anything.

It was nice to see that he really could focus. It was also nice to see that it didn't take a life and death situation to inspire him to it.

"That's a pretty melody," Allura said after a few minutes, "does it have words."

Lance's lips quirked slightly, and he picked up the song somewhere in the middle, "off to see the world; there's such a lot of world to see…"

Allura had heard Lance sing before. He tended to sing to himself when he was working on Blue Lion or doing chores around the castle. He had a pleasant voice, and he rarely seemed to sing out of tune unless it was on purpose with the intent of bothering someone.

"…we're after the same rainbow's end," Lance continued, " waiting round the bend, my huckleberry friend, moon river and me."

"It's a lovely song," Allura said sincerely, "thank you for sharing it."

"Oh," Lance's cheeks colored slightly, "you're welcome, I guess. It's from a really, really old movie that my grandma likes. She would sing it to us sometimes as a lullaby. Mom too."

Lance's voice was steady, but his fingers moved restlessly above the strings without touching them. Allura knew he missed his family; all the paladins did.

"I think I may be missing some cultural context," Allura admitted, "what is the significance of the rainbow's end?"

"There's a legend on earth, not that anyone really believes it anymore, that leprechauns…" Lance caught the princess's blank look and clarified, "little trouble causing fairies, hid their pots of gold at the end of the rainbow. So the rainbow's end is the place that you find treasure, if you can get there."

"And I imagine the treasure everyone hopes to find there is different," Allura speculated.

"Yeah," Lance started playing a song with a faster tempo.

"What would you want to find at the end of it?" Allura asked.

Lance paused in his playing, the strings vibrating into silence, and an oddly blank look crossed his face.

"Pizza," he said, then started playing again.

For someone who seemed so open and transparent most of the time, there were moments when Lance suddenly wasn't readable at all. She knew that shouldn't surprise her; all people had depths that didn't show, but for some reason, on the rare occasion that she noticed it with Lance, it made her feel as if the knowledge she had of him was really very superficial, and she didn't really know him at all.

Her father had told her once that for all her duties, she was under no obligation to share herself with anyone, but she couldn't really expect anyone to offer themselves to her in friendship or in loyalty if she wasn't willing to do the same.

"Mirtleberry tea," Allura offered.

Just the name was enough to bring back the spicy, floral smell, the memory of her parents at the breakfast table with her. He father put too much nectar in his, her mother never had less than two cups, the way they would laugh over her sleep frizzled hair, and the extra spoon of nectar her father would slip into her cup when her mother wasn't looking.

"Yeah," Lance gave her a half smile.

And she knew he understood. It would seem that for all their differences, their rainbows ended in the place after all, and there was something comforting in that.

Notes: The best version of Moon River is the original sung by Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Lance does a pretty good version of it, if he does say so himself (although not as good as his mom or grandma).