Black and grey fine line tattoo of a winged key with a Deathly Hallows symbol and the words It's real for us, on the lower leg.

Winged key and quote on a lower leg

Fine line · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A black and white photograph of a tattoo on the lower leg, above a sandal strap. It shows a winged key with a triangle, circle and vertical line symbol on its bow, with small star shapes around it and the words "It's real for us" in handwritten script below. The linework is fine and sketchy, with light shading on the feathers and the key shaft, and the photo is shot from a slight angle against a wooden deck.

Fine line Calf Key Feather Star Script text Quote

Find an artist for this

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

The key came tapping at the cab window just after the second well, when the sun was a red coin sinking behind the Sallow Hills and the road had gone grey as ash. Tamsin Vell did not stop. She had driven that road for thirty years with eleven barrels of water chained behind her, and she had learned not to stop for things that could not be seen in daylight. But the tapping kept on, a small hard knock like a beetle on glass, and when she looked sideways there it was, keeping pace with the wheel. It was a long iron key with two feathered wings folded back along its shank like a swift in a dive.

Keep reading

The bow had three marks cut into it: a triangle, a ring with a line through its middle, and a single upright stroke. Her cousin Abel, who sold tinned peaches at the crossroads, had seen the same marks on the gatepost of the old copper mine and said they were a travelling salesman's joke. Tamsin pulled over. The key hung in the air, wings beating slowly, and she followed it off the road onto a track of white stone she had never noticed in thirty years. Above it the sky had stars scattered like pins pushed through black cloth.

The track ended at an iron gate set into the cliff face. The key flew to the lock and waited there. 'It isn't real,' she told it, because that was what Abel would have said, and the words came out thin. The key turned slowly to face her, as if it had heard the doubt and was giving her time to take it back. She laid her palm flat on the cold metal and said, plainly, as she would sign for a delivery, that she believed it. The lock gave a sound like a dropped bell.

Inside there was no mine, only a hall of stars and a long table laid with clay cups of water. In the morning her barrels were full, though she had left them empty. She hung the key above the cab door. When the children at the crossroads asked what it was for, she only told them to bring a cup. The key still taps the glass some evenings, and she still stops for it.