Black tribal-style scorpion tattoo with a curled tail on the outer ankle and heel of a foot, shown against a blue cloth.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Black tribal scorpion on an ankle

Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black scorpion with a curled tail and pincers is tattooed on the outer side of an ankle and heel. The design uses bold, flowing blackwork shapes with tapering tail segments and a few fine details in the claws. The image is black and grey with a soft-focus blue background and pale tray surface.

Ankle Scorpion

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, the lot of you. The officer has gone for his tea and will be an hour finding his stamp, so I may as well earn my keep. This is about Vesna Dorr, who kept the goat road over the ridge, and the black scorpion she drew on every runner who paid her.

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Vesna never used a needle. She used soot and a sharpened goose quill, and she drew the mark low on the outer ankle where a boot lace hides it. A scorpion, she said, walks sideways and stings only what stands still. Anyone carrying her sign could pass the ravine hut after dark, and the guards at the bridge would glance at their feet, see nothing but mud, and look away.

The winter the snow came early, a boy called Tomas climbed the goat road with a sack of medicine and no mark. He had lost his boots in the river. Vesna knelt in the slush, dipped her quill, and drew the tail curling up past his heel with the pincers reaching for his toes. She charged him nothing. At dawn the guard on the bridge was her nephew, who knelt, ran a thumb over the wet black shape, and waved the boy through without a word.

Vesna lived to ninety and never sold a mark to a man who could not walk the road. Mind your feet on the way out, my dears. The stones at the hut are sharp, and that sting of yours will carry you as far as it needs to.