Colour tattoo of an open-jawed alligator among reeds and pink lotus flowers in water, in a neo-traditional style on the foot.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Alligator with lotus flowers on a foot

Neo-trad · Other · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows an alligator with its jaws wide open, its head large in the lower half, and its body curling up the left side among tall reeds. Pink lotus flowers and blue and green water swirl around it. The bold outlines and shading are combined with vivid greens, blues, yellows and pinks, and the design fills the frame.

Neo-trad Other Lotus Water Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

By the third night of the flood, the causeway into Ysmere had gone under, and the bell in the watchtower had stopped ringing because its rope was soaked through. You were the one who had to go out to the reed line at dusk and call the alligator home. Nobody else would go. The old queen had named the beast Oru and fed it from her own hand for forty years, and now she lay behind silk curtains, too weak to lift a cup.

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You waded out with a lantern in one hand and a basket of fish heads in the other, the water warm as bathwater and thick with pollen. The reeds stood higher than your shoulders. Oru was there, half sunk among the pads, the pink lotus flowers opening on the surface around his jaws as though he had arranged them himself. When you raised the lantern he lifted his head slowly and opened his mouth wide, the way the queen had taught you, and you saw the pale tongue and the rows of teeth like a gate of ivory bars.

You did not put your hand in his mouth. You had seen that done once, by a fool from the southern marshes, and the fool had lost two fingers and most of his nerve. Instead you set the basket on a flat stone and spoke to him the way she did, low and steady, reminding him of the bargain: the kingdom fed him, and he kept the water wild and the enemy's boats out of the reeds. He watched you with one eye the colour of old brass. Then he slid under, and the blue water closed over his back in a long, slow curl.

In the morning the flood had gone down a hand's width. The queen was awake, and she asked for the lantern keeper, and when you told her Oru had eaten, she smiled without opening her eyes. 'He always did know which of us was afraid,' she said. 'Go and sleep. The water will still be there tomorrow.'