Colour tattoo on a calf of a black cat wrapped with pink peonies, green leaves and a white snake, in a Japanese-inspired neo-traditional style.

Black cat with peonies and snake on a calf

Japanese · Calf · Mixed · Photo

A black cat sits in profile, its head turned over its shoulder, with pink peony blooms and green leaves across its body and a white snake coiling down its back and tail. The black ink is solid and smooth with bold outlines, and the flowers and leaves are filled with flat pink and green tones, with yellow eyes on the cat. The design fills the calf from the top of the leg to the ankle, set against a plain white background.

Japanese Neo-trad Calf Cat Peony Flower Snake Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The peonies had come up from the cold frame two days before the wedding, their heads so heavy that Nell had to prop them with hazel sticks. Bea wanted pink, the deep pink of the old bush by the back gate, and Nell had spent the morning cutting them with the secateurs her father left her, counting stems on the potting bench while the black cat watched from the water butt.

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Soot had come with the cottage, as Mum put it, and nobody had ever decided whether it belonged to anyone. It walked the garden wall like a bailiff. When the florist's van arrived with the ribbon, it stretched and stepped down into the bed, where the grass snake that lived under the compost heap lifted its head and said nothing. Nell had seen them meet before. Neither ever seemed to win.

The ceremony was at four. Nell set the last jug at the end of the trestle table, and a peony dropped its petals onto the cloth as Bea's new husband laughed at something his brother said. Bea caught her eye across the lawn and mouthed thank you. Nell nodded, and looked for the cat.

Soot was on the gatepost, tail curled around its feet, and the snake was gone. The bowl of rainwater lay on its side, the flagstones still dark with it. Under the lilac, a pale line in the grass ran back towards the compost heap. Nobody else had noticed. Nell went back to the table, took the one bud she had been saving, and laid it beside Bea's bouquet where the light would catch it.