Colour tattoo of a spotted maneki-neko lucky cat in front of red sunburst rays and purple lotus flowers, on the side of the abdomen.

Lucky cat with sunburst and lotus on the abdomen

Japanese · Other · Colour · Photo

A cartoon-style maneki-neko lucky cat with brown spots and a green collar sits in front of a red sunburst and a cluster of purple and grey lotus petals. An orange tag with black characters rests beside the cat. Bold black outlines define the shapes, with soft shading and saturated colour throughout.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bell at your collar has rung three times before the fishmonger's daughter notices the cat on the harbour wall is not hers. You have sat there since the tide turned, one paw raised, watching the lanterns of Varro Sel come on across the water. The kingdom has no king now, only a council of ferrymen who quarrel over tolls, and the sun has been slow to rise over the lotus marshes all season.

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The old potter who shaped you from red clay told you a raised paw calls coins to whoever it beckons. You have never tested the claim. Instead you keep a tally scratched into the wall beneath you: one mark for each stranger who stops, two for each who leaves a fish head. The orange tag at your neck still carries the potter's name, though the characters have worn to smudges that only your own paw could read.

On the thirtieth night a ferryman's boy, soaked and furious at his father, climbs up beside you and asks why you never beckon anyone toward luck. You blink slowly, the way cats do when they are thinking, and do not answer. He tells you the council has taxed the marsh boats into the mud. You rub your cheek against his wet sleeve. He laughs, tosses you a sardine, and then, without quite knowing why, unties his father's boat from the post and pushes it out toward the lotuses.

By dawn the petals are open, purple as bruises, and the sun comes up red behind the reeds, fanning out over the water in long bright rays. You lower your paw. Someone has to count the marks on the wall, and it may as well be you.

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