Black and grey dragon tattoo running down the back of a person with a raised arm, in Japanese style, with a branch-like tattoo on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black and grey dragon across a back

Japanese · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A person is photographed from behind with a large black and grey dragon tattoo coiling down the centre of the back. The dragon has a horned head near the shoulder, scaled body and clawed feet, shaded with soft grey gradients and fine linework against a plain white background. A branch-like tattoo wraps along the raised upper arm, and the person wears a white shirt and dark costume with red lacing.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The snow closed the pass the night after you left, and the inn has been full of wet boots and bad tempers since. Mother says we must feed the travellers whether they pay or not, so I have been boiling barley in the big copper pot and listening to the men argue about the dragon.

It came down from the high cirque the week before the thaw, though nobody saw it arrive. Old Hanne found its tracks in the drift by the well, each claw print as wide as a cartwheel, and a trail of scales like dropped coins. It went straight to the dead ash tree beside the stable and coiled itself round the trunk, horns against the bark, and there it has stayed. Its breath keeps a hollow of warm air around the tree, and the branches that were bare all winter have put out green buds, thin as a child's fingers, which is the only thing anyone is talking about now.

The carter says it is hungry, the priest says it is grieving, and Hanne says it is simply cold, the same as the rest of us. I have been taking it scraps from the pot in a wooden bowl. Yesterday I climbed the rail and set the bowl down, and it opened one eye the colour of wet slate, looked at me a long while, then pushed the bowl back with the tip of a claw, as if I had brought the wrong thing.

So I have stopped thinking it wants feeding. I think it wants company, which is more than I can say for the travellers. Tell Father the stable roof is still standing, and tell him the tree is greening.

Your sister, Ilse

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