Black and grey realism tattoo of a lion with large feathered angel wings spanning the full width of a person's back.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Winged lion across the back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A lion stands centrally, facing the viewer, with a full mane rendered in fine shaded strokes. Large feathered wings rise on either side of the lion and frame it from shoulder blades to lower back. The shading is smooth and detailed, with strong contrast between dark feather tips and lighter highlights, and the tattoo is entirely in black and grey ink.

Realism Back Lion Wing Feather Mane Angel wing

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the lion came back on the 6.40 again, though Mr Pryce at the parcels office swears the train was empty. He found feathers on the third-class bench, long and grey, each one dark at the tip and pale near the quill, and he had the sense to put them in an envelope rather than sweep them into the bin. I have them on my desk now, beside the ticket punch.

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You will say I am soft about it. Father always said a station is only iron and timetables, and I believed him until the winter the canopy glass cracked over platform two. The lion was there that night, standing in the sleet between the rails with his wings folded down like a cloak, looking at the signal box as if he had been waiting for someone to come out of it. Nobody did. The signalman had gone home ill the week before.

Yesterday I walked the line to the level crossing where the old footpath runs. There was a wooden gate with a brass plate worn bright by hands, and on the gatepost someone had scratched a lion's head with a penknife, mane sweeping back. I did not know who. I stood there until the 6.40 went through without stopping, and for a moment the wind off the carriages lifted the feathers out of my envelope and across the cinders like a flock of small grey birds.

I am not going to chase him. I think he goes wherever the line runs out of people. Come home at Easter if you can, and bring your good boots. The gate needs oiling and I have not the nerve to do it alone.

Your loving sister, Nell