Three small black fine line tattoos in a row on the inner forearm: a flame-like creature, a masked oval face and a cat-like forest creature.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three small character tattoos on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Three small, separate line drawings sit in a row across the inner forearm. From left to right they show a flame-shaped creature with a small face, an oval mask with two dark eye marks and no mouth, and a round cat-like head with pointed ears, whiskers and large eyes. The linework is thin and even, in solid black ink with no shading, and the plain pale skin around them keeps the composition simple and clean.

Fine line Forearm Character Line art Small tattoo

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Pull your collar up, child, the rain's coming sideways off the fish sheds, and you'll want to hear this before the lamps go out. Every wet Thursday on Gallow Lane there were three stalls nobody ever bought from, and I'll tell you why. Old Mrs Tully sold roasted chestnuts from a tin drum, and inside that drum lived a sooty little flame no bigger than a thumb, who kept the coals hot and hissed whenever a customer was rude.

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Beside her stood a grey man in a plain oval mask, with two dark slits for eyes and not a single mark where a mouth ought to be. He bought one chestnut every market day and paid in buttons, always exactly four, and he never once said a word. The cat came last, a round and whiskered creature that rode in the crook of the umbrella seller's arm and sheltered everybody who stood under it, though it was only ever the size of a loaf.

One dripping evening the flame sulked. Mrs Tully had sold the last of the good coal and meant to tip the drum into the gutter. The masked man set down his four buttons, then did a strange thing: he lifted the drum in his two grey hands and carried it to the cat, who purred until the coals glowed bright as a church bell. Nobody saw where he went after, only the puddles that lit up in a row all the way down to the canal.

So when it rains on Gallow Lane and you hear a tin drum rattle with no one near it, don't go looking. Buy a chestnut, leave four buttons on the step, and keep your mouth shut when you pass the grey man's empty stall. It's the least a body can do for a fire that once kept it warm.