Black and grey realism tattoo of a lion wearing a feathered headdress, shown from two angles on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lion in feather headdress on ribs

Realism · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

The tattoo shows a lion's head in profile wearing a large feathered headdress with a diamond-patterned band and a circular medallion, strung with beads. The lion's fur and face are shaded with fine, soft gradients, while the feathers use detailed linework with solid black tips. The image is split into two views of the same piece, with mostly black and grey ink and a few small touches of red in the headdress.

Realism Ribs Lion Headdress Feather Bead Diamond pattern Medallion

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, the lot of you, because the old lion will not tell it over the noise of the coconut shy. The cat they called Solomon came to Hallowby Fair the spring the big wheel snapped its bolts, and he came with nothing but a hatbox and a debt owed to a candy floss man called Pike. Pike had won him in a card game in Carlisle, and he kept the receipt folded in his waistcoat pocket like a saint's relic.

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Inside the hatbox was a headdress of grey feathers, each tipped black as a crow's wing, stitched to a band of leather worked in red diamonds. A round medallion sat at the crown, and from it hung a cord of wooden beads that clicked whenever the cat turned his head. Solomon would not wear it for the crowds. He wore it at midnight, alone in the menagerie tent, where the old tigress Mags could hear him counting the beads under his breath.

Pike had a wager going with the strongman. Every bead Solomon gave up bought one more evening of the cat performing in the ring, and every feather he lost meant the crowd cheered a little louder. By August the cord was bare and the feathers were thin as cigarette paper. Solomon sat on the wagon step and looked at the last bead for a long while, then pressed it into the palm of a girl who had come to watch him sleep.

The fair packed up on a Sunday. Pike counted his takings in the rain, and nobody saw the cat go, only the empty hatbox left on the step with its lid off and the sound of a single bead rolling down the gravel towards the gate. The girl still has it. She keeps it in her coat pocket, and if you ask nicely she will show you the black-tipped feather that came with it.