Echoes & Silence
"MUSIC MAN! A SONG!"A trandoshan in the crowd stood up, roaring in unison with his dangerous crew, hissing a sibilant insult at Obran. He sighed and reached up behind him, unslinging his hallikset. The resident musician was stammering as Obran stepped up, heavy crimson cloak parting to reveal polished mythosaur bone and trakar styled like traditional Mandalorian beskar'gam. Shoving the stammering Nubian aside, he stepped to the mic and winced as it hissed with feedback. Swatting, he unplugged it, and cleared his throat with a low rumble.
Obran had been in a dozen jams like this, and though gruff with his fellow artisan, he did it for the pasty fellow's own good. What that one was doing in a seedy place like this, the home of mercenaries, war criminals, and worse, was anyone's guess. Twisting a knob here, tweaking a string there, he plucked a few chords, and another clearing rumble started in his throat. The trandoshan stood, opening his mouth, and from the armor the Bard wore, a light began beeping, and a red dot appeared in the center of the mercs forehead as Obran continued tuning the hallikset. It was just a range finder tool, but no one would know that, and the crowd immediately hushed as the lizard-like warrior froze and then resumed his seat without a word...
"The colors of his mourning..."
The first words ranged out from the mouth with a gravelly sweetness that belied the grizzled and scarred face. He continued singing as the dimly lit, smoky cantina fell suspiciously silent, the hallikset and the voice and the squeak of a monkey lizard cook in the back the only sounds to be heard, and the last was silenced with a muffled squawk. The silence was filled by other voice and the music, until the end...
"In a prison of his making... The man who can't... Forget...."
The ballad would be knew to them all, being one of Obran's own compositions, but anyone who might know it would know it was written at the behest of a Mandalorian smith as a bet that the Bard could not forge a tune better than the other could forge gear of war. And the armor and weapon Obran carried now were a result of that bet, as was the ancient and worn hallikset. As the melody ended, Obran turned as silently as he had taken the stage and resumed his seat in the back corner with his ale.