Andra knew no pain as the ink sank into her skin. Her father had said there would be pain as the tatist found the shapes in her skin. There was no pain, only heat and pleasure. The tatist said the ink took some people like that. It was different for everyone, the tatist said. She, herself, had felt rain, warm and wet as tears, while the clouds massed across her skin.
Andra sometimes wondered if the tatist had known it would be dragons from the beginning. If she had seen the dragons in Andra's skin even before the ink had given them form. The first curled around her right hip, head resting on the jut of her hip bone, tail curling lazily across to the juncture of her thighs. The second nestled along the hollow of her collarbone and draped around her shoulders, one clawed foot curling into the short hairs at the nape of her neck. The third twined around her left leg from ankle to knee. The fourth--
Four, whispered the tatist to Andra's father, as delicate, jewel-edged scales emerged from the ink in her hands. She had never dreamed dragons in ink before. Her teacher had told her of dragons, but even in his long life he had never had them under his hands. Almost she stopped, drew away the ink, but she could not leave them incomplete. Beautiful and terrible together the fourth draon twisted across Andra's back and curled around her torso in an eternal embrace.
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