Black and grey dragon tattoo wrapping from the upper arm across the ribs, with a smaller flaming dragon on the thigh against a warm gold background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black and grey dragon across ribs and arm

Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A large winged dragon with a long serpentine body wraps across the side of the torso, over the ribs and onto the upper arm. Fine shading and flame-like detail give the scales and wings depth, and a second, smaller flaming dragon sits lower on the hip or thigh. The image is rendered entirely in black and grey ink against a warm orange and gold backdrop with scattered sparks.

Ribs Upper arm Thigh Dragon Wing Flame Claw Scale

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The forge at Corran Sound had been cold for three winters when the dragon came up out of the slag heap. Nobody had seen it arrive. Maud Penhallow found it in the morning, curled in the ash like a dropped rope, its wings folded tight and furred with grey dust. It was the colour of wet slate and it breathed out small sparks when she prodded it with the tongs.

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She had no business keeping it, and she kept it anyway. She fed it coal from the bunker and old herring heads from the quay, and in return it sat on the anvil and watched her hammer. When she worked iron it lifted its head and the flames along its crest flared gold against the wall, the way the sun catches the tide. Men coming up from the harbour would stop in the doorway and forget what they had come for.

In March a lamplighter's boy came running with a rumour that the Sound's old mooring chain had snapped in the storm, and the new schooner Ardent was drifting toward the rocks with her hold full of lamp oil. Maud ran. The dragon ran faster, its long body rippling over the cobbles, and when it reached the water it did not swim. It rose, wings snapping open, and blew a column of fire over the breakers so the wind sang.

By dawn the Ardent rode at her anchor with a fresh chain of Maud's forging. The dragon sat on the harbour wall, singed at the wingtips, and watched the gulls. Maud brought it a fish. It ate the head first, as always, and then it looked at her and blinked, slowly, the way a cat does when it has decided to stay.