The Six Tattoos of Tamlin Jorun
Tamlin doesn’t remember getting his first tattoo: the Dathomiri pattern inked across his face not long after he was born. He does remember his mother’s soothing voice and the way she wrapped him in the force when she touched it. It was like curling up inside a lullaby.
Years later, when he admitted to his uncles that he was struggled to remember her, they pulled up a bunch of holos–Grizelle chasing him around a rebel base, the two of them playing dress up in Leenik’s wigs and stolen stormtrooper armor. But his favorite holo projected her from the torso up. She was laughing at something off camera, smiling ear to ear. The uncles all argued about what had been going on when the holo was taken. But they all agreed that the only thing that could have made Grizelle smile that way was her son. On his 15th birthday, Bacta took Tamlin to get his second tattoo: A portrait of Grizelle Jorun in black ink on his forearm, so that he could never truly forget her face.
Tamlin’s third tattoo was the name of the first girl he fell in love with. The uncles tried and failed to talk him out of it. Tryst set up a betting pool on how long it would take for him to regret it. But after eight months, she left him for a boy she met at university, one who was on-planet for more than days at a time.
So the uncles took him to get tattoo number 4. They were a few space beers further into things than Bacta would have liked, when Tryst suggested he get another tattoo to cover it up–in fact, they should all get tattoos! There was an argument about what it should be and it took several vetoes and a roast before they agreed on roosters. Unable to decide on one design, they all grabbed a piece of rooster decor and lugged it to the nearest tattoo studio. Everyone got one but Leenik, who went through all the trouble of having one designed after the pattern on his favorite tea cup. He kept the sketch and sent it off to be printed on contact paper so he could sponge it on wherever and whenever he felt like it.
Around 2 am local time, they called up Lyn who had to listen from three systems away as the boys told her that as an uncle, she too needed to get one. She decided not to mention Tryst owing he 40 credits for timing Tamlin’s tattoo remorse almost to the week and instead launched into a lecture about the wisdom of covering one regrettable tattoo with yet another regrettable tattoo–while drunk no less! But the next time they were all together, she got what Tryst referees to as “a cock of her own” on her left ankle.
Tattoo number 5 happened when Tamlin was in his mid 30s. He was on Ord Mantel when he met a Mando’a woman in a bar. She had dark hair and was covered in ink, and she introduced herself as a Skirata. She showed him her wrist and he broke down crying when he saw the series of letters and numbers emblazoned there. He’d known for a while he was going to get this tattoo, but there were so few people left who would understand its significance. That night, she etched “CT-1776” over his heart.
His last tattoo was of the Mynock. The ship had been decommissioned decades before, but as Tamlin found himself going through old holo-albums more and more, it struck him just how much of his life he’d spent on board. The first time he flew, his first broken heart, birthdays and life days and more fights and heart-to-hearts with his family than he could hope to remember. He’d spent most of his life moving from one place to another, and many of those places felt like home. But when he slept and when he dreamed, he found himself dreaming of the Mynock more than any other place. So when he was 68 he had the ship inked to his back, where a bird wears its wings.
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