Black and grey realism tattoo of a hooded video game hero with a shield and sword on the forearm.

Zelda-style hero with shield on forearm

Realism · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo of a fantasy video game hero resembling Link from The Legend of Zelda, shown mid-action with a shield at the left and a curved sword slash above. The linework is soft and the shading is smooth, with strong contrast in the dark clothing and soft greys on the skin-toned background. The figure fills the centre of the forearm and is cropped at the top and bottom of the frame.

Realism Forearm Shield Sword

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Osric had told the tale so often that the novices mouthed it along with him, but he would never let them hurry the part about the shield. Sit down, he said, tapping his staff twice on the flagstones. A shield is not a thing you hold. It is a thing that holds you, and you must learn its weight before you learn the sword.

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The boy came out of the fen villages with a green hood pulled low and a wooden shield painted with a crest nobody in the valley could read. Nobody had ridden past the salt marsh since the bells of the abbey of Saint Wendel fell silent. The bell-ropes hung still, the cellar lamps went out one by one, and the grey things rose out of the reeds at dusk with mouths like wet slate. The boy walked into the reeds with a sword in one hand and the shield raised before his face, and the light came off his blade in a long curving arc that split the mist from one horizon to the other.

He did not win by strength. He won by patience, standing with his back to the dyke while the creatures broke themselves against the painted rim until their own shadows gave way. By dawn the marsh was quiet and the bell-ropes swung again, and the abbey cook came down the causeway to find the boy asleep against a stone with the shield across his knees.

He would take no payment. He left the shield on the abbey gate with its face turned to the road, so the next traveller would know the way was open. That is why it hangs above the refectory door, Osric said, and why none of you may touch it. Now, who is hungry?