Small black deer silhouette tattoo with antlers on the upper back, photographed in warm light.

Deer silhouette tattoo on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A single deer with branching antlers stands in profile, with a spotted patch along its flank. The figure is filled in with solid black ink and softer grey tones, with little internal detail beyond the spots. It sits alone on pale skin near the base of the neck, with a dark top and hands visible at the edges of the frame.

Back Deer Stag Antler Silhouette Animal Spots

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The frost had settled into the ploughed field behind Hollin Farm by the time Dora Platt saw the stag at the edge of the beech wood, one forefoot lifted as if it had forgotten what came next. Its antlers branched like a dead rowan against the grey sky, and half its flank still wore the pale speckles of the fawn it must once have been.

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Her father said the animal was older than the parish register, older than the wall that split the top pasture. Alf, her brother, wanted the hide for the tannery in Kendal and talked about it over supper until their mother told him to eat. Dora said nothing. Each morning she carried the heel of the loaf to the gatepost, set it on the flat stone there, and walked back down without looking round. By the second week the crust was gone every day, and by the third the stag came close enough that she could see its breath.

In January the bread stayed on the stone. Alf found the tracks going up toward the quarry, long and uneven, one hoof dragging, and he came down before dinner with the rifle over his shoulder and a look she did not like. He did not say what he had seen. He hung the rifle on its pegs and never took it down again, and he never went up the quarry path after that.

In March, when the becks ran loud with meltwater, Dora found a fawn at the trough, spotted from neck to tail and too young for antlers, drinking as if the water were its only job. It lifted its head and watched her with the same steady patience as the old stag. She put a crust on the stone and went in to tell her mother the bread was for two now.