Colour realism tattoo of a red fox with feathered wings and leafy branches across a person's back, shown in two photographs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Fox and feathered wings across a back

Realism · Back · Colour · Photo

A red fox with feathered wings stands on a branch surrounded by green leaves, with a dark bird perched lower on the same branch. The linework and shading are soft and painterly, with detailed feather texture and wisps of smoke or mist curling down the back. Orange, green and grey-black ink dominate the composition, which runs from the shoulder down the side of the back.

Realism Botanical Back Fox Feather Wing Branch Leaves Bird Smoke

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The boats had been out three nights when Mary Tully climbed the headland path to ask the fox for the wind back. Everyone in Lowmouth knew the fox lived in the ash tree at the cliff's edge, and that it kept its wings folded under the red coat, though nobody had seen them open since the old harbourmaster's day.

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She found it on a low branch with a rook beside it, the two of them watching the grey water like men watching a wager. The rook spoke first, as rooks do. 'The sea has her price,' it said, 'and the fox has already been paid.'

The fox only lifted its muzzle toward the smoke rising from the curing sheds below, thin and grey, drifting out over the harbour wall. It spread its wings once, and feathers came loose and turned in the air like ash, and each one settled on the water and went under. Mary understood then that the fox had been feeding the sea all along, one feather for every boat that came home late.

She offered it her own shawl, the only thing she owned worth giving. The fox took it in its teeth and went down to the shore, and by morning the nets were heavy and the men were singing. Mary never climbed the path again. Some said the fox had gone. Others said that on still evenings the smoke from the sheds leans out over the water, the way a fox leans to listen for a boat coming in.