Heir to the blue hair, golden eyes and pale, delicate beauty that can be found in many Theelin and half-Theelin, Tamare's looks were shaped, not only by the gifts of genetics, but also by a childhood spent in the Coruscant underworld, and an adolescence under his permissive Jedi Master, Koryan Lyu. He grows his hair long, and combs it stylishly, with no regard for the customs of the Jedi Order. His physique is slender, with long limbs and torso, and only mildly toned by the years of training. He is not particularly tall by human standards, standing at 1.79 meters, but what he lacks in physical grandeur he makes up for in litheness.
As he grew older, Tamare's Master allowed him to express himself with a modicum of freedom through his attire, to the point of eventually letting him abandon the Jedi robes in their entirety. Instead, he began to wear more casual and fashionable pieces of clothing popular in the Uscru Entertainment District, including his now trademark gold and dark fuchsia pullover, his short multicoloured leather jacket, his black military pants, his long grey-blue leather boots, and his feathered scarf, that he normally hangs from his utility belt to conceal his lightsaber beneath. Perhaps the most important piece of clothing, however, would be the necklace he always wears around his neck. It combines an old Theelin talisman Tamare's mother gave him as a child, made in a brown metal, with a silvery amulet that his Master gifted to him when he learned to speak Bothese fluently.
On the outside, the boy from the Coruscant underworld who grew to be Master Lyu's Padawan may seem quiet and contemplative to most, a secretive person who keeps his thoughts and emotions to himself, and avoids confrontations when possible. Growing up in the undercity, Tamare learned the value of silence as a tool for survival, and as a liturgist's Padawan he was taught to use words with care. However, when he does speak, most of those who listen think him immature, spoiled and distant, and not without good reason. Master Lyu doted on Tamare, in part because it was in his nature, but also because he pitied the boy for his troubled past and poor health, and this had no small effect on Tamare's character as he grew older. He became disrespectful, albeit never maliciously so, and paid little attention to anybody other than his Master, or anything other than his studies. While not vainglorious in the least, he was unwilling to compromise when it came to personal matters, and at times showed overt disdain towards some of his fellow Padawans.
Beneath this public persona, however, Tamare is first and foremost a frightened child and a grown cynic, who conceals his pains and insecurities deep within a sick spirit as he desperately tries to fulfill his self-given purpose. He constantly struggles with his self-perceived weakness, as well as the very real temptation to lose himself in spices and death sticks. When he is not trying to advoid following in the footsteps of his parents, he is loathing them in silence for their own weakness. Only his Master was ever able to gaze upon this side of him, and though his efforts helped bring Tamare a modicum of comfort and strength of character, his work was left incomplete, and ultimately undone, by his sudden disappearance. Without the man who raised him and trained him, Tamare is lost. The connection with the light side of the Force, that Master Lyu help him build, keeps him safe from going down a darker path, but the sudden solitude, after spending the latter half of his life under the loving care of his Master, is a constant torment. He continues his training on his own by listening to his Master's recorded lectures on his datapad. The sound of Koryan's voice comforts him, and the wisdom he imparts through it gives him purpose, but at the same time it fosters his growing obsession.
Now that he is alone, Tamare feels that Koryan Lyu was, for all purposes, his whole life, the only thing that kept him away from the perils of the underworld, the only thing that came close to resembling a home. Therefor, every day he muses, he plans, and he follows the flimsiest leads. Finding his Master is now the thing he cares about the most now, the glimmer in the distance that drives him forward, towards the Mandalorian Wars. A part of him believes that his Master may have fled the Jedi Order to fight the Mandalorians in the Outer Rim, while another tells him that, even if he has not, the Outer Rim is his best chance of finding clues, and fighting the cruel Mandalorians is what his Master would have expected of him.
Nineteen years ago, a pale woman with blue hair lay squirming and moaning on an old hospital bed covered in soot and mold, breathless. Her heart frantically beat to the rythm of the undying machinery of this sunless city. A human hand covered in scars and filth clutched hers, almost as pale as hers, for it had been dwelling in the deep darkness of this forsaken place for its entire life. His whispers and her cries were drowned out by the mechanical cacophony beyond the walls of the clinic, a music of the lifeless, the artificial. In this sunless city, the only times you heard the sound of life were the times when it was being tormented, or ended.
Hours passed by, a tired Kiffar nurse their only occasional company, and the endless night seemed to only grow longer.
Then, the long, painful wait was over. A child was brought to the galaxy, as beautiful as its mother, and as quiet as its father. A boy with a weak body and a stubborn spirit.
Tamare, his father named him. An ignorant bastardisation of an old, proper name in a tongue from a far-away system, but it would do.
The Coruscant underworld was no place for sucklings. Vermin, monsters, and monsters in the skin of sapient beings ruled over the dark, narrow alleys, that seemed to swallow all those who dared passed through them, the rusting grand machines that the world above had forgotten, the pipes clogged with corpses, both old and new, and the run-down apartments where outlaws dreamed of reaching the light above through the blood of the weak.
The boy lived, however, and he grew. In time, he learned, and then he climbed upwards.
A shrewd little urchin, a well-spoken and mild-mannered murderer once said to his parents, his gloves covered in dried blood, as they watched the boy sitting atop a metallic tower, many feet closer to the light above than the other children of the undercity. His parents did not take pride in that. They could never take pride in bringing a child to this world of foul shadows, or raising an urchin, however clever their urchin was. They could never take pride in having their spice-tainted blood course through the veins of an innocent, preserving their curse for another generation. So consumed were they by their own demons, that they never realised that their son he had been able to understand the cries of a Rodian whore as she was being tortured in an alley, behind the ruin they called "home", despite the fact that their sweet, sickly Tamare could not speak Rodese.
Tamare lived through seven years of darkness before he finally found a way to the world above, after quietly searching for it in solitude while his parents lay recovering from a night spent in the company of spice and death sticks. He went alone, for he had learned not to trust the other children. He had seen children in the alleys, far more vicious than most grown outlaws, crushing each other's skulls over the flesh of plump rats, picking up old flasks of cheap adulterated spice to quench their innate thirst, and imitating the cruelest outlaws in games that always ended in bloodshed and promises of vengeance.
The world he found above had little sunlight. Most of its light was artificial, colourful, and it was as dizzying as it was exhilarating. The sound in this world had life in it, with laughter aplenty. There was no machinery to conceal the lively voices of those who walked past the clubs, theatres and hotels. He saw no small amount of thieves, slythmongers and crooks, but here they masked themselves. He saw no bloodied limbs being displayed on the streets as a warning, or mothers screeching for the children they had lost to disease, cruel men, or their own madness.
It was there, on the streets of the Uscru Entertainment District, where Tamare first felt
it, a nameless entity, incomprehensible for his young mind, yet somehow familiar. It was powerful, and overwhelming so, to the point of making him lose all notion of where he was. For an instant, he thought he had glimpsed an image, a sight through somebody else's eyes, but it was gone in the blink of an eye, and he was kneeling on the floor as this bright new world passed by in a frenzy once again.
For two years, the life of the boy with blue hair and golden eyes was divided between sneaking through the shadows of the undercity, every day an ordeal to avoid the most horrifying deaths, and skittering through the lights of Uscru, just basking in the maddening sights and noises, and collecting trinkets, his parents none the wiser about his escapes. He lost himself completely in his explorations, never speaking to any strangers in Uscru, even those that seemed friendly, nor to his neighbours in the undercity, having long since learned the value of silence. Nobody made enemies out of those who said nothing.
Tamare sated his growing curiosity about the universe beyond the underworld by watching and listening to the pedestrians, the pickpockets and the slythmongers. With every new fragment of knowledge, his thirst for more grew, and with that thirst the energy he had felt the first time he reached Uscru felt closer and closer to him, until he began to constantly have his thoughts interrupted by visions of what was happening around him. He saw how assassins neared their targets, how prostitutes stealed from their clients, how bartenders lied to agents of the Coruscant Security Force, and how some people felt an excruciating hunger Tamare knew all too well as they passed by the slythmongers, all through their own eyes. Uscru became his home, the place where death seemed too distant for him to fear it with every step he took.
All changed soon after Tamare turned nine years of age, as he sat on a dark corner by a theatre in Uscru, marveling over a playbill for a classic play being performed inside. Comfortable in his solitude, and engrossed by the words and the colours printed on the plastic and paper, at first he did not feel the orange eyes that were staring at him, or the mind behind them. It was only when he suddenly caught a glimpse of himself from afar that he realised somebody had noticed him at last, an event he had been dreading since he had first stepped onto Uscru.
The half-Theelin's golden eyes searched for this person, and soon he found himself staring at a tall Togruta, with dark red and white skin, and white and blue montrals. He wore a brown robe, and his face was that of an adult, albeit a relatively young one. As the Togruta walked towards him, he gave Tamare a small smile, one behind which Tamare found no malice.
The Togruta stood above Tamare for a moment, gazing down at him in silence, before kneeling. He placed a large red hand over Tamare's knee, and began to speak, his voice soft. He asked for his name, his age, his place of birth, whether he knew what the Togruta was, and since when he had been able to delve into the minds of others.
Tamare only gave him silence at first. Words could become death in the underworld, he knew, and as nonthreatening as this Togruta was, Tamare did not trust him. He remained unmoving, his eyes upon the Togruta's. He seemed hurt by that, but his tone remained soft as he told Tamare his name and rank. He was called
Koryan Lyu, and he was a Jedi Master. He asked again, and this time Tamare nodded shyly, and muttered his name and age, barely parting his lips as he did so. He then pointed below with a dirt-covered finger, and the Jedi understood.
Master Lyu spoke to him for a while longer, his smile never vanishing as he talked of the Force, Force sensitivity, and having grown up in a downtrodden neighbourhood himself, and with the same powers as Tamare. He then departed, leaving Tamare with a credit chip and the promise that they would meet again the following week.
The Jedi Master kept his promise, much to the untrusting Tamare's expectations, as the two met once again on the same corner near the theatre. This time, the Jedi Master brought treats and a hologram that spoke about the Force, both of which the boy relished with joyous awe. This time, Tamare spoke a handful of words more, speaking about the underworld and asking questions about the Jedi, and as they parted he allowed Koryan to hold his hand for a few seconds as farewell.
Over the course of six months, Tamare and Koryan continued to meet on Uscru, a bond slowly forming between the two as they learned more about each other. In time, Koryan began to speak about rectruiting Tamare, while the boy tried to prove his power by translating what nearby pedestrians said. His quiet, suspicious exterior slowly chipped away by the nonchalance beneath Koryan soft tone, Tamare soon became fascinated with the Jedi Master, and the life of the Jedi as he described it.
On the end of the sixth month, Koryan made his decision, and accompanied Tamare to the undercity one last time. There he told his parents that their son would become a Jedi, a decision both of Tamare's parents reacted to with tears of joy and regret. Joy, because their only son would be taken away from the darkness they had raised him in, and regret, because their spice abuse had driven their son away and left him with scars. Leaving all his possessions behind, save for the gifts Koryan had given to him over the course of their meetings, a suddenly conflicted Tamare left the underlevels for the last time.
Koryan Lyu's decision to recruit an urchin from the lower levels was met by his fellow Masters with skepticism. Though Tamare showed irrefutable signs of Force sensitivity, and Koryan attested to his speech comprehension with enthusiasm, many felt his upbringing and glaring personality flaws would make him difficult, if not outright impossible to train.
As a Jedi Initiate, Tamare did not quite prove the other Masters wrong. Indeed, though he did show some promise, and there were no visible signs him being at risk of falling to the dark side of the Force, he was moderately antisocial at best, and frustratingly unruly at worst. He passed most tests with no more visible effort than most, but struggled when it came to working with his fellow younglings, or during tests that demanded close attention and discipline. It was only after Koryan Lyu, going against custom, began to personally tutor him during their free time that Tamare was deemed ready to be raised to the rank of Padawan.
It was upon both Koryan and Tamare's stubborn insistence that the Jedi Council agreed to place Tamare under Koryan's tutelage as Master and Padawan, their personal bond unbroken during Tamare's time as an Initiate. As Master Lyu became fully dedicated to making Tamare a true Jedi, they grew even closer.
Being a Liturgist, Koryan had spent most of the previous years in the Jedi Temple, studying ancient tongues in the Archives, and only occasionally did field work, visiting distant systems to add new dialects to the Archives. In that regard, he focused his efforts in giving Tamare a rich academic education, mostly to give the boy an outlet for his talents, and to give them an enviroment as devoid of stress as possible. More practical endeavours were cast aside, Koryan seeing them as potential triggers for his fragile Padawan.
In the years that followed, Koryan's efforts bared fruit. While Tamare did not befriend any of his fellow Padawans, he did begin to open his mind to his Master, until the two of them became comfortable with having their thoughts and feelings read by the other. Their joint meditations brought them closer, and gave the boy peace of mind. He learned to control his powers and his temptations, and his training in the Way of the Hawk-Bat strengthened his body. As time passed, there were but a few incidents, most of them minor, while Tamare learned new languages and joined his Master during some of his research trips to the Outer Rim.
As Tamare traversed through his teenage years, Koryan became more and more doting, giving him the nickname "Rada", after a type of bird from Shili, and allowing him to abandon the Padawan robes in favour of a more personal outfit. On occasion, the two would visit Uscru together, and spend a night or two distracting themselves from their life in the Temple, either by going to the theatre or visiting a club.
The relationship between Tamare and his Master raised a significant amount of eyebrows in the Jedi Order as the half-Theelin neared his coming of age, as some Masters worried that Koryan had allowed his fondness for the youth to blind him from his duties as a Jedi Master. Although he repeatedly proved himself to be academically brilliant, and capable enough on the field, many were not sure he was ready for Knighthood, given how he still lacked real combat experience, and he was rumoured to have run away from the Temple whenever he lost control of his disorders.
Tamare finally had his first and, as of yet, only real fight as a Jedi shortly after turning sixteen, when he accompanied Koryan and other Jedi Liturgists on a mission to study an ancient variant of the High Galactic language in a planet near Hutt Space. There, while visiting and archaeological site, they were attacked by Hutt-funded treasure hunters. During that battle, Tamare proved his worth as a Padawan, using his gifts to control the flow of battle, using his telepathy and memory to keep their enemies at bay, fending off their attacks with swift precision, and lead them towards the perfect spots for a counter-offensive. When the dust settled, he had captured one of the treasure hunters, and maimed another two.
Tamare and Koryan's return to Coruscant was marked by the appearance of a sudden tension in their relationship, one that none of their fellow Jedi could comprehend. Although they still spent most of their daily lives in each other's company, it was said that, for some reason, Koryan had barred Tamare from reading his mind again. Tamare's training continued, as usual, but even after the fight against the treasure hunters he was still far away from becoming a Jedi Knight, even by his Master's own admission. Frustrated, Tamare devoted himself all the more to philology, and two years later, at long last, he voiced his intention to become a Liturgist and work alongside his Master for the rest of his life, a commitment that seemed to alleviate the strain in their relationship, and persuaded the Jedi Council to allow Tamare to go through his first trial of Knighthood.
Tamare's Trial of Skill was formidable, pitting him against a simulacrum of a pair of particularly vicious Sith Lords, but he ultimately succeeded in overcoming both, getting him one step closer to becoming a Jedi Knight, after years of stagnation. The trial over, Master and Padawan began to prepare for the Trial of Courage that would inevitably follow, spending more time in meditations to ensure Tamare would be able to resist fear and live through whatever the Council would decide... but, for Tamare, the second trial would never come.
Nobody quite knew what to make of it, and theories ran rampant through the Order when it happened. The only certainty was this: In the middle of a short mission to Corellia, Master Koryan Lyu had vanished, leaving nothing behind but his own shocked Padawan.
Nobody within the research party that had accompanied them knew what had happened, and only vague, and often conflicting rumours, were what they got from the inhabitants of Coronet, where they had been staying. Many claimed they had seen him being taken by bounty hunters in a club. Others said that he had drowned himself in the sea. The only one that felt true to the grief-stricken Tamare, however, was the claim that he had ran away, to fight the Mandalorians.
Whichever rumour was true, however, the truth of the matter was that Tamare had lost his master, and for the first time in a decade he had nobody to turn to. Once he returned to the Temple, Tamare did not leave his chambers for days, and when he eventually did, it was only to spend weeks in the Archives, where he alternated between continuing his studies and searching for clues of his Master's whereabouts. With no way to know if Koryan was ever going to return, the Jedi Council could not bring itself to assign a new Master for Tamare, nor force him to go through the Trial of Courage.
In the months that followed, Tamare's behaviour became far more erratic and antisocial than ever before. He only ever spoke to Liturgists, and only rarely. He showed less and less interest in continuing his training with the passage of time, and as news of the atrocities committed by the Mandalorians reached the Temple in Coruscant, his devotion to the Order seemed to slip away with them.
It could be said that Revan's call to arms saved Tamare from losing himself completely, and the risks that such a thing would have entailed. Though he had never met Revan in person, Tamare's Master had mentioned the rogue Jedi in the past, and in its desperation his spirit instinctly clinged to the hope that, somehow, the Revanchist movement could lead him to Koryan Lyu. The galaxy was burning, and his Master was probably out there, fighting the Mandalorian scourge in the name of justice, and his Padawan could do no less than follow.
So it was that Tamare, a half-Theelin Padawan, came to join IRSOG...
