Black and grey line drawing of an interlaced dragon with shaded scales, shown as a tattoo design without a body placement.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Interlaced dragon design

Black and grey · Flash

The drawing shows a dragon with a long, looping body that weaves through itself in a knotwork pattern, with its head at the upper left and clawed feet at the top right and lower centre. The body is outlined in bold, clean linework, and the scales are filled with fine stippled shading that gives them a textured, mottled look. The design is rendered entirely in black and grey on a plain white background, with the composition filling a tall portrait frame.

Dragon Knotwork Scale Interlace Claw

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom,

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You'll laugh, but Father has finally started on the lych gate, and he has me holding the lamp while he cuts the dragon. It is the one from the old Ellerby stone, the beast with the tail that goes round and round and never ends. He says you can trace it with a finger from its snout to its claws without once lifting your hand. I have tried, and he is right, though I lost my place twice where the loops cross over and under each other like the plaits Mum used to do.

Mr Haddow from the chapel came by on Tuesday to ask why we were charging so much for the oak. Father told him the wood was never the expense, the counting was. Every scale has to be pricked in by hand, dots no wider than a grain of rice, and he won't let me do any of them because my hand shakes when I laugh.

Last night the rain came in sideways and the gate was dripping, and I swear the dragon's eye had caught the lamplight. Father said that was the point of the eye, to catch whatever light was going, and then he sent me home before I could ask him what he meant.

I am writing this at the kitchen table with the scraps of your last letter still under the salt. Come home for the dedication in June. The vicar wants the gate blessed, and Father wants you to see the final loop before he closes it, because he says once it's shut, nobody can get in or out without going the long way round.

Love, Nell