Private Tally 'O

[Tallivin Australis]

He’d been taking it easy, taking up simple jobs around the many ports. Mostly it was a lot of fetching, loading, unloading and record of stock flowing in as well as out. Easy stuff for him really, but it was nice. Tal wasn’t one to complain and while he could have done something different, this was where he started and it was nice to get back to it after so long.

With his break over he was back to unloading. His current boss was a crotchety old man, but fair and they got along well enough once he saw that he was willing to work. Right that moment it was produce he was moving. Well, more like inspecting, but the stuff that passed he also moved.

He shifted a box and all one could hear was the sound of things falling. Dodger put his head out with a frown and then came out jogging. “Australis! You al’righ?”

Tallivin made a groaning sound and sat up, making more things tumble. “Yeah! Ow…” From the mound of fruit and vegetables he pushed his way out and stood up rubbing his head. “Didn’t realize things had shifted, sorry Dodge…”

“Nah, you sit on those crates over there yeah? Make sure you don’t need a doc.” He said pointing.

Like a smart fellow he did as told as the old man called names and set to setting everything straight. Meanwhile Tal was gingerly probing places that hurt to see if he was worse off than he thought. He didn’t want a trip to a medbay, but sitting down was good.


K Kaine Australis

 

[Tallivin Australis]

It would be immediately clear the closer he got that the ‘Australis’ that was getting attention was not Mandalorian. Even among their own without armor they had a way about them that spoke in every inch of them and Tallivin didn’t have that. As he shifted into view Dodger and his sons stiffened and shifted to stand in front of Talli. From where he sat the younger man looked at this rather bemused. Their body language said they were protecting him. He slipped off the box and looked over their heads, as the tallest among them only came up to his chin.

He pushed his way respectfully through them and met Kaine’s helmeted gaze without any hesitation. Dodge grabbed his shoulder and he turned looking down. “Lad, you let us deal with this one.”

“You told me that we don’t turn customers away and if he was after any of us, pretty sure the whole district would know already.” Tal gave the old man a grin. “I’ll be fine. Met a couple a while back, they aren’t as bad as you think.” He gently pushed him towards the shop and while he grumbled the old man and his sons grudgingly let him get to why they hired him. He turned back and casually dusted himself off. “Alright, I won’t do the usual chit-chat because it’s not necessary.” He chuckled. “I can tell you that if you are buying supplies for your enclave, this supplier is the best. Granted, had I not been here he likely would charge you through the nose. All of this is local and except for the stuff that fell on me, good enough to eat right now. So, are you after anything specific or you just after a selection?”

Tal was able to skip over introductions, handshakes, polite talk and all those other things that most did. He’d been the one to work with the pair back in the day because no one else wanted to team with them. Truth was, while he’d been able to keep up, they took care of any threat and not once had he needed to act. It had left him feeling a fair bit insignificant, at least at the time. While he hadn’t learned too much, he also found himself respecting them. Of course, seeing this one on Naboo was interesting, but everyone knew what had happened to Mandalore, so it wasn’t as surprising as it used to be.

Tal didn’t fit in with those on the port. He got a measure of protection and respect, but he didn’t act like a local and it showed in how he stood, how he acted. He’d seen the wider galaxy, walked further and touched unknown corners. There was strength and pride in him, but it was clear he’d never known what it meant to have your own blood stand with you. To know the entirety of your own people would stand and fight beside you.

He wasn’t at all bothered by the silence, just waited calmly for him to choose in his own time.

K Kaine Australis

 

[Tallivin Australis]

Tally flashed a smirk at that. “Right, I’ll see to it that its brought in by people too, no droids.”

He picked up the holo-tab and placed the order and then set it down again taking his hand. When he spoke his name, the younger man’s chin lifted a little and his eyes went cold going from crystal blue to green tinted gold. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, nor did his manner become unfriendly. “Pleasure doing business with you sir, anything else you need?”

His mother never knew the man’s first name and Tallivin had never gone looking. He could have, putting in his last name would likely have given him plenty, but he hadn’t. Facing this stranger with his name, it brought back anger he thought he had gotten past. He wasn’t ashamed of where he had come from or the fact he was a bastard. He assumed that this one had heard his name shouted, he knew enough about the mandalorian tech to know the sensors were top notch.

While he didn’t doubt supplies were welcome, he was willing to bet that wasn’t the overarching reason he chose where he worked to buy from. Tally wanted him gone, he didn’t want to have to deal with this, but knew he had no choice. Like it or not, his existence was known.


K Kaine Australis

 

[Tallivin Australis]

As Kaine turned to leave one of the younger sons came out and frowned. “Make sure to give his money back, father would have a fit, we don’t accept tips. What did he want anyways?”

“We share a name, he got curious.”
“Wait, you’re one of them?” There was curiosity and suspicion in his voice and his questions were getting annoying.
“No. My mother was a dancer here in Naboo, took a fancy to some general and I guess he was Mandolorian.” He stifled a growl. “I have no place in that world, now drop it.”

He then pushed away and caught up with the man,. “Look, the boss doesn’t want his employees taking tips, take this back. And I’d appreciate it if you forget about me. Whoever my sire is, he doesn’t need a whore’s unwanted get mucking up his family life and I never sought him out for a reason. Okay?”

Stars and stones he hated how it felt like he was groveling to protect some dirty little secret. Eris was of a different mind, his feline soul-brother was curious as a whole business of ferrets about what kind of family he had. It was an unpleasant backdrop to the anger and incredible irritation he felt and he was ready to claw someone’s face off to get relief. His life was well and fine without this complication, a breath later the cat eased off with a huff to sulk in the back of his mind.

In his mind, had his sire been even remotely interested to know if he had offspring in this place he’d have come sniffing around to look. The cold truth was, his father took a fancy to his mother the same as she and then walked into the night and they both forgot. It was a tale told countless times and that was that. Besides, he’d never fit, he was an outsider and he’d never be welcome. Especially by the man’s mate and the last thing he wanted was a wrathful female spitting in his face. He’d sooner kiss a hutt than deal with the hell storm a woman at the seat of a whole clan could start.

No, he was better off dismissed and forgotten.

K Kaine Australis

 

[Tallivin Australis]

”You’re a whore’s unwanted get kitten, your father was my flight of fancy and that is all. I doubt he’d remember me and till you asked he’d been forgotten.”

It was something his mother often said with her sultry breathless laugh. Poking fun at herself, but instead he winced inwardly at the tone in this stranger’s voice. “Something my mother often said, nothing more, but true enough all the same.”

”A son of a whore must claw his way in the world, I do you no favors for the galaxy will do you none either. Do not mistake my letting you stand on your own as proof I do not love you, but you are long past the age where a mother must lick her kitten clean.”

And like many of her words of wisdom paired with a soft caress of his cheek with that sad wistful smile, it had been true. Only luck and cunning saw him land on his feet and he had done it all without going to mewl at the door for the scraps from a stranger.

He faced the man and weathered that seething gaze, he wasn’t going to back down when all he had done was speak truth. He was the son of a whore and so what?

 

[Tallivin Australis]

The Lopara shrugged. “Some general that she spent a night with, she gave me his last name. She didn’t tell me much more than that because in the end that was all there was to tell. She had been a dancer, she hadn’t stopped until she got sick…”

Remembering that made him look away and sigh softly. She hadn’t lasted more than a few months, she’d been almost totally bed ridden and he’d barely managed to make enough to keep a roof over their heads. “Our people stay in top form till the last months of our lives and she’d been old when she had met him. She took up with him for her own pleasure and left before he got the idea he had to pay her like others she had shared company with. He hadn’t been work. Her having me had come as a surprise… I suppose I could have turned up at his door at fourteen when I lost her, but I found work and survived on my own.”

It was a tale that had little, just a night where she did something for herself and had a memory that made her smile. For him though, knowing his father had been some ‘important’ person hadn’t mattered to him. He’d just been a man who shared his name, nothing more. He didn’t know what it was like to have family, to have people to stand with. For him the idea of it was confusing and made his chest ache, which upset him. Why should he feel pain for blood that hadn’t cared enough to keep track of where they spent their seed? Why should this shadowy figure and any of his family get to show up now and remind him?

Why now?

K Kaine Australis

 

[Tallivin Australis]

He snorted. “I know she didn’t, because after she put him from her mind and told me as such.” He shifted hooking his fingers in his pockets. “I don’t have any qualms with that, I suppose it's that… I don’t need the annoyance of finding out I don’t measure up, even though I won’t change myself to try. I’ve seen it countless times, someone finds their other parent and the foolery of trying to be and failing. I won’t do that, I don’t care enough. If that makes sense?”

But having family would be nice…

He ignored his other half completely. “It's the idea that I might be lacking something that could be a thing just because of all the things attached to a name. That I will be somehow less. That by knowing I am suddenly elevated because I belong, completely ignoring the fact I was always myself regardless. Maybe it won’t be that way, maybe he’d be perfectly glad, but time and again I have seen things to the contrary and I decided long ago that I didn’t need to find out.”

Better to not go looking and get his face lit on fire for the effort. He couldn’t be a disappointment if he didn’t know. He couldn’t end up disappointed if he never sought to reach. Sure he had regrets and had wistful thoughts, what child didn’t? However reality had a fantastic job of making fools out of everyone. “No one can fit some idealized image in the minds of others…”

 

[Tallivin Australis]

Tally nodded and grinned. “Large part of why I am so apprehensive. I know my worth to myself, but the idea someone else looking at me and seeing less, just because they decided so? Without getting to know me? Who shares my blood? I’d rather do without. But… I know that at the same time by not trying I am not being fair either. So yeah, in that way I know I am being a coward... “

He shook his head with a sigh. “My mother didn’t fall into that category of nurturing, when I fell I fell on my own and had to pick myself up from the dirt myself. She neither comforted or condemned, so family, the idea of it… It's a nebulous thing that when you talk about it..” He shrugged. “I dunno, not sure I am cut out for it and gods… The idea of kids?”

Oh the horror. Oh he liked them well enough, when they weren’t his, but him? A parent? “I’m liable to squish the poor brat just by looking at ‘em.”

Which probably put him in the same place countless others have also said. He sighed softly. “So, what are your thoughts then?”