Black and grey realism tattoo of a snarling lion head with bared fangs on the upper arm.

Snarling lion head on upper arm

Realism · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A large lion head with its mouth open in a snarl, showing bared fangs and teeth, with the mane shaded behind it. The tattoo uses fine shading and soft gradients for fur texture, with strong dark contrast in the open mouth and nose. The image is black and grey only, shot close up on the upper arm against a dark leather surface.

Realism Upper arm Lion Lion head Mane Fangs Snarl Teeth

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

No, sit closer, the fire will last another hour and the tale wants the dark around it. You want to know why old Ysolde Venn kept her teeth bared at the Council men? Listen, then. It was the year the rain fell sour and the rail-cages under Gantry Nine held only one tenant left: a lion called Morrow, grey at the muzzle, who had come down from the old zoo sealed in a freight crate before anyone living was born.

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The Council wanted him for the arena at Lowmarket. They sent three men with a tranquiliser rifle and a clerk carrying a sheet of ration tokens, and they stood at the gate talking as if the beast could not hear them. Ysolde put her key in the lock herself. Her hands were shaking, and she told herself it was the cold.

Morrow came to the bars and looked at her. Then he lifted his great head, drew his lips back over those long fangs, and roared so the rusted rails rang like a struck bell. His mane rose behind him like a storm coming in off the estuary. The clerk dropped his tokens. The rifleman's aim went wide into the puddles, and all three ran up the ramp faster than any Council man had run in a generation.

Morrow padded out into the wet green of the old gardens and lay down under a fallen plane tree, muzzle on his paws, as though he had only been waiting for permission. Ysolde sat beside him until the fire-lamps of Lowmarket went out one by one. They say the Council never sent a second party. They say the keeper's grandchildren still keep that key on a red cord, and that the lion's roar is the only lullaby this city ever trusted.