Black and grey realism raven tattoos on both forearms, with a small fine line fleur-de-lis above the left wrist.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two raven tattoos on forearms

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Two large raven or crow designs sit on the inner and outer forearms, one perched in profile and the other shown from the side with its head turned. The birds are rendered in smooth black and grey shading with detailed feather texture and highlights. A small grey fleur-de-lis sits near the left wrist against a dark, plain background.

Realism Forearm Raven Crow Bird Fleur-de-lis

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The second raven arrived on the night the gas went out along Carlisle Row, when the whole street smelled of wet coal and nobody could see their own boots. I had kept the first one for a year, a sullen bird that sat on the railings outside Hollis's pawnshop and stole sugar lumps from my tea tray whenever I left the back door open. Hollis swore it was the same bird that had perched on his father's gatepost, and I never argued, because he paid me in shillings and stale bread and never asked where I had been.

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That Tuesday he sent me out after midnight with a leather satchel and a list of three addresses in Clerkenwell. Every pledge he took was stamped on the back with a small fleur-de-lis punch, a habit from his French grandmother, and each of the three items was wrapped in brown paper with that mark pressed into the fold. The brooch in the first parcel had belonged to a woman who died in her bath, and the widower wanted it gone before the funeral. I took it, left the coins on his mantel, and told myself that was the end of the business.

The second bird was waiting on the lamp post at the corner of the lane when I came back. It dropped onto my shoulder without a sound, its claws cold through my coat, and turned its head to look down the street exactly the way the first one did, as though something was coming that only ravens were willing to name. Neither of them made a noise until I reached the shop door.

At dawn I found both birds gone from the railings. On the tea tray lay a single sugar lump, and beside it a small brass key I had never seen before, its bow shaped like the same flower stamped into the paper.