Black and grey pencil flash design of praying hands, dice, playing cards, a winged pocket watch, roses, skulls and a banner reading Such is life, in a neo-traditional style.

Such is life flash with skulls, dice and praying hands

Neo-trad · Black and grey · Flash

A dense composition of praying hands at the top, with dice, playing cards, a pocket watch with wings, roses, a crown and two skulls grouped around a banner that reads Such is life. Radiating dark rays sit behind the hands, and a spider web fills the lower corners. The image is drawn in graphite pencil with soft shading and bold contrast, and it is entirely greyscale.

Neo-trad Praying hands Dice Playing card Pocket watch Wing Rose Skull Crown Spider web Banner Script Ray

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The last of Hollin Keep's roofs had gone the winter before, so the steward dealt his cards in the open air of the great hall, under a sky that leaked moonlight through the rafters. Osric Vane rolled the two ivory dice again and watched them settle on a pair of fours. Across the table the stranger leaned back and smiled at the dice as if they owed him money.

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The stranger had come up the valley road at dusk, asking for a bed and offering a wager instead of coin. His terms were plain. Every hour the loser held would pass to the winner, and the stranger set his pocket watch face up on the oak to keep the count. Its hands had not moved since they sat down, which Osric chose to ignore, because the cards were good and the wine was thin and he had never once in his life been lucky.

They played until the candle guttered. The queen of hearts came up for Osric, then the ace of spades for the stranger, then a run of diamonds that stacked like coins. On the final throw Osric prayed under his breath with his palms pressed together, the way his mother had taught him, and the dice clattered to a three and a three. The stranger laid down his last pair of sixes, said that such is life, and the watch chimed twelve, once, very softly.

Morning found Osric on the chapel steps with the watch warm in his palm and its second hand walking at last. Spiders had strung a web across the doorway overnight, grey with dew, and the stranger was nowhere in the valley. Osric counted what he had left, one hour at a time, and found it was enough to be going on with.