The Tattooed Princess

Dancing Leopards

            Zaria was intrigued by this process and smiled at him while he focused on her face and upper torso. Again he was deep in thought.

           "But I do not see it here," Tsudros said, passing his hand smoothly over her unadorned shoulder and arm.

            "You do not?"

             "No. But wait. . . turn away from me," he said, motioning her to turn aound.

            Zaria turned as he directed and faced the wall of the small room.

            Tsudros then brought several lit candles which were around the perimeter of the anteroom room up closer to the table. He quickly went in to Sharvurs bedchamber and returned, pushing before him a large waist-high vase full of olive oil and with a floating wick. The lamp provided even more light at the edge of the long table.

            "Now turn away again," he said.

            Zaria complied.

            "Can you . . . take off your top so I may see . . . just your back?"

            A sudden chill of excitement ran across her neck and shoulders as the artist asked this. And after considering it, she simply pulled the chitin up over her head and removed it, leaving her bare back exposed to him in the bright light.

           As Zaria waited in anticipation, she felt a heightened since of anxiety as Tsudros did not speak. He apparently was picturing something there on the broad canvas of her naked back.

            "Alright, he finally said. "I see what my mind is asking me to draw. . . here on you." She felt Tsudros' warm smooth hand move from the back of her neck downward  in a broad serpentine curve to a point just above her buttocks.

            Zaria was speechless. She had not considered her back to have any such tattoo, and certainly not something so sweeping as to cover such a large area of her body. Yet, under the spell of his beguiling hand resting there, and the idea that he had seen something no one else could imagine, she knew she could not refuse his vision.

            "Tell me, Tsudros . . . what do you see there . . .?

            "I would rather not . . . just let me put my dream there, while I see it so clearly. Trust me, Zaria, that you will love it, as you do the mythical creature which no one else in this kingdom has upon them."

            Zaria was feeling a trembling and heightened since of excitement with her naked back still exposed to him,  and especially from not knowing what would emerge there. A design she would wear her entire life.

            "Alright, Tsudros . . . and yes, I do trust you. I want you to give me what you see. To wear it there on my back, as you have dreamed it."

            The sheer boldness of the idea had given her a sense of power and affirmation she could not explain. Zaria knew that what ever it was that Tsudros would carve into her skin would be hidden from most. But who ever saw it would be forced to take notice, to respect her courage and uniqueness. For as she well knew, as the whole community well knew, there had never been a girl or woman who had carried the stigma she was destined to have in the Pazyryk culture.

            "Fantastic!" Tsudros said with an enthusiasm that was contagious. "Let us begin, then. Here . . . get up on the table and lay with your back up for me to see in the light."

         Zaria left her chitin off and covering her firm breasts with her arm. She  climbed up on the table and lay face down. Tsudros took her chitin and rolled it into a pillow for her. He then put it beneath her face readying her for what would prove to be a long and painful procedure. Zaria had expected this and was prepared for the discomfort. Throughout it all she would try to imagine what he was carving with his sharp instruments into her lovely, and innocent skin.