Full colour tattoo of a woman in traditional dress holding a sword before mountains and flowers, across an upper arm and shoulder.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Warrior woman with sword on upper arm

Neo-trad · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

A female figure in a patterned red and blue robe stands at the centre, holding a sword upright beside her. Behind her are rounded green mountains, a tree, and a serpent-like creature curling around the left edge, with orange and pink flowers along the bottom. The linework is bold and the shading is soft, with rich colour across the whole piece and the design wrapping over the curve of the arm.

Neo-trad Upper arm Shoulder Woman Sword Mountain Serpent Flower Tree Robe

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are nine the summer the fair pitches on the edge of the Ravensmoor road, and the strongman's daughter has already told you the snake in the tent is a lie. You don't believe her. The painted board outside shows a green serpent coiled beside a woman with a sword, and you have decided that the woman is real. Your mother sells candied apples from the next wagon and tells you to stop staring at the sign.

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On the third night the tent lamps gutter and the serpent is gone from its basket. Old Pell, who runs the hoopla stall, says it went up into the painted hills behind the backdrop, where the rounded green shapes are not hills at all but sleeping things. He hands you a blade wrapped in oilcloth and says a sword is only heavy if you carry it for someone else. You walk out past the dodgems and the council's rushed flower beds, the blade knocking against your shin with every step.

The serpent is at the top of the lane, curled round the trunk of a dead oak, and it lifts its head the way a cat does when it has been expecting you. You do not swing. You kneel and hold the sword out flat, hilt first, the way the woman on the board holds hers, and you wait. After a long time it uncoils, slides down the bark and into the hem of your coat, cold as a river stone.

At dawn the wagons are rolling and the board has been repainted overnight. The woman stands alone now, the serpent gone from the tree, and her blade points at your feet. Pell says nothing. Your mother asks where you have been all night. You tell her you were only keeping the mountains company.