Shaman's Tattoos: Science Fiction/Fantasy

The prickly feeling along the back of his neck was the tap--tap of scorpion's claws as it climbed up from the base of his spine. He closed his eyes against the crawling sensation. Hawk had startled him when it first fluttered, fish's flop over his stomach was pretty unsettling, but the crawl of scorpion up his spine was the worst of them so far. He did not look forward to finding out what the other twelve felt like, and he cursed the day he'd thought it a good idea to get high on the native hallucinogens and stumble out to a reservation to have a tattoo done. Along the way, it became a good idea to get many tattoos, not just one, and he'd decided that only the shaman would do as the tattoo artist.

Inspiration: I kind of wanted to write a mood piece, so I started with "the prickly feeling along the back of his neck"--of course, then the story took over.
Story Potential: medium-high. not a whole lot of forward momentum here.
Notes: Gee, I wonder what the living tattoos do?