A colourful Japanese-style dragon tattoo with orange and blue scales runs down a leg onto the ankle, where cherry blossom sprigs sit beside a white strap heel.

Dragon tattoo on a leg in white heels

Japanese · Calf · Colour · Photo

A leg wearing a white Mary Jane wedge shoe with a buckled ankle strap shows a large Japanese-style dragon tattoo. The dragon's scaled body, orange flames and whorling clouds cover the calf and continue onto the ankle, where cherry blossom sprigs and a wave-like pattern appear. The dark glossy floor reflects the shoe and the tattoo against a plain background, with the colour ink dominating the scene.

Japanese Calf Ankle Dragon Scale Flame Cloud Cherry blossom Flower Wave

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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

You are the last one on the platform at Halden Road, buffing the black tiles after the final train until they hold the lamps like still water. Mr Varga at the lost property hatch says nobody has claimed the white wedge shoe that came in on the Ferriby stopper in March, so it's yours to look after now. He hands it through the grille without looking up from his crossword, and the buckle strap clinks against the metal shelf.

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Under the strip light you turn it over. The leather is cool and faintly smells of rain and cheap blossom soap. When you tilt it toward the floor, the reflection does something odd: the glossy tiles pick up a painted dragon that is not on the shoe at all, a blue-scaled body coiling up from the heel, orange flames curling at the toe, clouds whorling over a pattern of waves. You rub at a scuff with your thumb and the dragon shivers and settles, as if it was only waiting for someone to look down.

So at the end of your shift you carry the shoe out past the ticket barrier, down the ramp to where the rails bend toward the estuary. The tide is out and the mud shines like the floor did. You set the shoe on the last dry square of concrete, heel down, toe pointing at the water. Out on the flats a heron lifts without a sound. When the milk train passes behind you its lights wash the platform white, and by the time you look back, the shoe is still there, but the reflection in the wet concrete has already gone out to sea.