Realism tattoo of a dark dragon breathing orange fire above a lighthouse on the sea, shown on the inner forearm.

Dragon breathing fire on a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A dark dragon head with a spined crest fills the upper part of the forearm, breathing a plume of orange and red flame downwards. Below, a lighthouse silhouette stands on a dark, misty sea under a pale, hazy sky. The dragon is shaded in soft greys with smooth gradients, while the fire is the only area of strong colour, and the composition flows from the dragon down to the lighthouse.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the step, it's worn where three generations of boots have climbed it, and don't look down at the sea until you've got your breath. Now. Old Tobias Yeo had the Scarrow light the winter the dragon came up out of the Cold Mouth. He didn't believe in dragons, mind. He believed in paraffin, brass lamps and the board man from the mainland who'd be out in March to count them.

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The thing came low over the water in the fog, so dark you only knew it by the stars it blotted out. Tobias heard it before he saw it, a sound like a sail tearing slowly. Then the great head swung round the gallery rail, crested with spines like a row of broken oars, and its eyes were pale as the moon through cloud. It looked at the lamp. It looked at him. Then it opened its jaws and breathed out a river of fire, orange and red, and the whole sky turned the colour of a forge.

Tobias did the only sensible thing. He turned the wick up higher and told it the truth: that the light was for ships, and ships were full of men with mothers. The dragon folded its wings. It lay down on the rocks below the tower like a cat by a hearth, and it kept watch with him until dawn, its flame going out in small, obedient puffs.

They say the Scarrow light never once went dark that year. The board man found the lamp burning bright, the keeper asleep on the stair, and out past the reef a shape like a black hill, sleeping in the swell. Tobias never told anyone what he'd bargained for, only that the dragon wanted a lamp that never failed, and he kept it, every night, until the day they buried him.

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