Fine line illustrated design of two pale-faced girls, a dragon head and a pink crystal above a ribbon banner, with no body placement shown.

Two girls, a dragon and a crystal design

Fine line · Colour · Flash

A detailed illustrated design shows two pale-faced girls framing a reptilian dragon head and a pink crystal, with a small hedgehog or owl-like creature below. The linework is fine and precise, with soft grey and mauve shading that gives the figures and ornate details depth. Scrollwork and a curled ribbon banner with script text sit at the base, forming a symmetrical, vertically stacked composition.

Fine line Dragon Crystal Girl Owl Banner Ribbon Script Scrollwork

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lift in Harrow Court has been broken since Tuesday, so you take the stairs with the crystal in your coat pocket, the one you found wedged behind the bin store, pink as a boiled sweet and cold as a tap. Seventeen floors. Your sister Ruby says the dragon painted on the wall by the bins is the one who sleeps under the car park, and you have decided not to argue, because she is nine and you are eleven and the stairwell smells of bleach and chips.

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On the ninth landing a hedgehog sits in the middle of the step, not moving, quills up like a tiny rake. You crouch. Its eyes are round and wide, more like an owl's, or you think so. The strip light above buzzes. Ruby says hedgehogs don't come up stairs. You tell her the crystal hums when you hold it near the lights, and she goes quiet, which is how you know she believes you.

At the top, the roof door is propped open with a brick. The wind hits you all at once, and the city lies spread out below like a dropped map. Across the gap stands the other tower, its windows lit like the inside of a jewellery box. Someone has sprayed letters along the parapet in dripping pink: another world. Ruby reads it aloud twice. You lift the crystal against the sky, and for a moment the car park becomes a lake, the bins become boats, and the painted dragon far below turns its head to look up at you.

Then the lift dings from the ground floor, mended, and Mum's voice rises up the stairwell calling that tea is on. You put the crystal back in your pocket, where it stays warm all the way down. You don't tell Ruby that when you looked back, the hedgehog was gone, leaving only a small dent in the dust on the ninth step, the shape of a door.