Colour realism tattoo of a teal and orange moth wrapping around a forearm, shown from two angles.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Teal moth tattoo across a forearm

Realism · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A large moth with teal and blue wings edged in orange and red wraps around the arm, with the body and antennae shown near the inner elbow. The wings have fine linework, soft blended shading and small eye-like markings, giving them a naturalistic look. Colour ink dominates, and the image shows the same tattoo from two sides of the arm against plain skin.

Realism Forearm Moth Wing Antennae

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hold still and mind the lamp, it's the only light left on this bank. No, don't wave at the glass. She's out there, the pale one with the tails. Folk on the cut call her Sorrel, for the colour of her wings where the lamplight catches them, and the old lock-keeper swore she had eyes on every wing, opening and shutting as she breathed.

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Her lock was Harrow Lock, and the year the river came over the towpath, the Wren Mary tied up under the sluice with a cargo of slate and a boy named Tobias who could not swim. Amos Dunstable kept the lamp burning all night for boats that came through blind in the fog. Sorrel came to that lamp every evening, and wherever she settled, the boats came through safe. Nobody thought to ask why the bargemen who looked too long at her eyes went quiet for a week after.

Tobias looked too long. He stopped sleeping, and one night he climbed down with a jar, meaning to sell her to a man in town who paid good coin for curiosities. He got as far as the sluice gate. The eyes on her wings watched him the whole way, and by the time he reached the water he had forgotten the name of the man in town, and his own mother's face besides. He opened the jar and let her go.

So the lamp went out behind her, and the river found its own way in the dark that year. If you hear the gates groan after midnight, look for a flicker of teal and burnt orange over the water. That's her, still keeping count of who looks too long. Now lie down. The lamp's out, and she's not coming to this window.