Side view of a leg in a strappy heeled sandal, with a black and grey ornamental tattoo running from the calf down to the ankle.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black and grey ornamental tattoo on a calf and ankle

Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A side view of a woman's leg in a strappy high-heeled sandal, with a large tattoo running from the calf down to the ankle. The design appears to include a dragon-like creature with swirling scrollwork, rendered in black and grey with shaded areas and fine outlines. The plain light background keeps the focus on the leg and the tattoo.

Calf Ankle Dragon Swirl Scrollwork Ornamental Leg

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Corin had carved the serpent's tail three times before Captain Hallam would look at it properly. "Too much water in it," the captain said, rapping the scroll with his knuckle. Corin wanted to say the ash had come seasoned from Hull and the water was only sweat from the lamp, but the fog was pressing its cold thumb against the stern windows and the hands were watching from the rigging, so he took up the gouge again.

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The crew said the thing had followed them since the Azores. Every night at the second bell someone swore they saw a dark coil turning under the wake, scales catching the moon like wet slate, then a fan of scrollwork lifting out of the swell and sinking back. Corin had seen it himself, though he kept that to the galley where the cook could nod and not ask. Hallam wanted the carving on the bow to frighten it off. Corin wanted it on the stern, where it would be behind them.

He worked through the watch, shading the scales with a stippling punch until his fingers ached, and when the bell rang he rubbed soot into the grooves so the carving would read black from the deck. Hallam came up at dawn, looked at it a long time, and said nothing, which from him was praise.

By noon the wake lay flat as pewter, and nobody spoke of the serpent after that. But when Corin went aft to check the paint, he found a rope of black weed wound round the rudder head, curling exactly the way he had cut the tail, every frond ending in a small hook of a curl. He stood there a while, then tied it off with a clean knot and left it be.