Black and grey Japanese dragon with clouds, maple leaves and a rose across a forearm, shown from three angles.

Japanese dragon and maple sleeve on a forearm

Japanese · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Three side-by-side views of a forearm covered in a black and grey dragon with scaled body, claws and a detailed head, set among swirling clouds. Maple leaves and a rose sit in the background, and a line of script lettering sits near the wrist. The shading moves from deep blacks to soft greys, with fine linework defining the scales and whiskers.

Japanese Forearm Dragon Cloud Maple leaves Rose Scale Claw Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, you, where the lamp can reach your face. No, the dragon will not come down the lane tonight, it has its own business above the ridge. Now, where was I? Ah, the summer the Hollin brothers quarrelled over the cider orchard, and the rain stopped for forty days.

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Old Tobias Hollin kept the lower row, the one with the crooked Bramleys that nobody else would prune. His brother Ned had the upper slope with the sweet russets and a little heap of stones at the gate for luck. Every evening a cloud came over the hill and sat on the wall between their land, grey as wet slate, and out of it came the dragon, long as a cart road, its scales like the lids of old pans. It did not eat anything. It only looked down at the two of them with its eyes narrowed, as if counting the apples.

Tobias, being stubborn, took his billhook up to the wall one night. He told the dragon that the trees were his, the fruit was his, and the rain had no business in either. The dragon said nothing. A maple leaf came loose from the cloud and dropped onto Tobias's hand, red at the edges, and it weighed more than a stone. He stood there until dawn with it in his palm, and by morning the brothers were sharing one barrel at the gate, and the rain had come back to the valley.

The leaf is still in the tin box on my dresser, if you want to see it. Go on, mind the glass. The dragon comes back whenever a wall is argued over, that is all I know. Now, mind the lamp.