a mirror; or very occasionally, in front of Savannah.
As for now, I was glad that the ruddy glare of the torches was hiding my flush of embarrassment. Stripping before strangers, even partially, was terrifying.
“Do not let the fear go to your head,” Calaphase warned, quietly but urgently. “There are werewolves in the audience; they can smell your adrenaline, hear your heart race.”
“Thank you, Calaphase,” I said, letting my breath out slowly. Then I turned, and slowly began unbuttoning my pants.
“Whoo!” cried a young wolf, leaning into the pit, surprisingly close. The female werewolf batted at him, but he leaned back and yelled anyway. “Take it all off!”
“I would not want to embarrass the Marquis,” I replied, twisting so that the pants slid softly to the floor and the rest of the vines and flowers flickered to life. “Nor would I want to be accused of influencing the judges with too many samples of my canvas!”
The crowd laughed, as I stood there half-naked in front of them in my black bra and panties, turning slowly with a bravado I didn’t feel. The male tiger prowled around me and nodded. “It is a fine canvas,” he said, ignoring the wolf-woman as she struck him. “And an exceptional body of work—”
“Those cannot be all her artistry,” the Marquis said, eyes boring into me, nostrils flaring.
“They indeed are,” I replied, turning oh so slowly, eyes thanking Calaphase as he dusted off my pants. “I did all but these on my hand and these on my thigh—”
“You lie!” the Marquis hissed, and the crowd grew silent. “Be careful with your accusations,” the male referee said quietly. “She is a guest. She does not know our rules—”
“She lies!” the Marquis said again. “Can you not see it! All of you who have been under my needle know it. She cannot have done her own knees—”
“A shaking leg can be held down,” I said. By Kring/L, in fact, and it had taken both of his big, beefy hands to hold just one of my legs still—tattooing your knee hurts. “It need not disrupt the hand—”
“She cannot have done the dragon,” the Marquis yelled. “It covers her whole body!”
Now my nostrils flared. I prowled across the ring until I stood just in front of the Marquis, then held up my right hand, clamped as if holding the electric needle. Then I slowly bent down, and began to trace the tattoo.
The Dragon’s tail starts curling around my left big toe, a black and gold design with blue and green gems that make it sparkle with life. I lifted my foot off the ground, curling my hand around the toe, the ankle, once, twice, three times, the limit of my balance. I then stretched out my leg and touched the ground, drawing my hand up my leg and over the outer curve of my thigh, tickling the Dragon as it marked its circle around the muscles of my belly.
By now it was clear to anyone who could see that I’d drawn that one single design where my own right hand would reach. But the Marquis’ eyes tightened skeptically, and truth be told, I had done this bit in a sequence of short strokes, alternately twisting over my shoulder and behind my back in a sequence that had taken five sessions over three days. But the crowd and judges were not likely to listen to any kind of explanation; I needed to make a show.
So I began twisting around slowly, showing off the reach and flexibility of my long arms and supple neck. The movement agitated the Dragon, making his tail flicker and withdraw from my foot. You’ll rarely see a skindancer fully covered in tattoos, and not just because we know how to use negative space; it’s for the magic. Our tattoos need room to move.
The Dragon moved as I moved, coiling and shifting about my body as I stretched and flexed my skin, drawing his glittering form underneath my hand as easily as I had when he was just an outline. The Marquis was half right: I couldn’t have done the Dragon if he was a normal tattoo; but since he was magic, once the major components of the design, the logic of the magic, was in place, I could move him almost anywhere I wanted to fill in the details.
But some points were better for the magic than others, and in case the Marquis was savvy enough to know that, I made one final show. As the Dragon