Black and grey realism tattoo of a lion wearing a feathered headdress, placed on the inner forearm with a few red accents.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Lion in feathered headdress on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A lion's face is centred within a large feathered headdress, with feathers fanning out above and falling down either side. The lion's fur and the feathers are shaded in soft greys and deep blacks, with fine detail in the eyes, nose and whiskers. Small touches of red appear on the cheeks and across the headband, and the tattoo sits against a plain light background on a forearm.

Realism Forearm Lion Headdress Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody at the Pier Pavilion ever asked the lion what he thought of the headdress, which was fair enough, because he would have said it itched. My father had found it in a costume trunk behind the Margate bathing huts, a fan of dyed turkey feathers gone the colour of weak tea, and he had sewn it to a leather band for the Saturday matinee. The posters promised Duke, King of the Sawdust, in full regalia. Threepence for the front rows, sixpence for a seat.

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Duke sulked through every rehearsal. The feathers caught on the cage bars and the red ribbon along the band rubbed his brow raw, so I dabbed him with a little greasepaint each morning, two stripes on the cheeks like a rowing man in the rain. He tolerated me because I brought the good mutton. Father said the feathers would make him look noble. I said they made him look like a man who had lost a bet.

On the Saturday, a boy in the front row shouted something rude, and the whole pavilion leaned forward to see whether Duke would roar. He did not. He stood, shook the feathers so they flared like a sunrise over the sea, then sat down again and yawned until his jaw clicked. The crowd went wild. They cheered the yawn louder than any trick we had ever taught him, and Father stood in the ring with his top hat in his hands, realising the act had been the lion all along.

That night I unhooked the headdress from his shoulders and hung it on the caravan door to air. The wind came off the water and the feathers lifted, one after another, as if something unseen were checking them for damage, and Duke watched from the straw with his plain golden face, as though the whole performance had been a mild inconvenience he had agreed to out of politeness.