When you finally needled in the last scale, you could have sworn the dragon opened its eyes and breathed.
Because it did. The tattoo expanded, became a bas-relief, then an actual statue of living, hissing, undulating flesh rising from the client's chest. You staggered back in shock, only to be restrained by a shimmering, multi-colored claw. The dragon's maw moved in synch with the client's mouth as he - it - explained: this had been a test, and you had passed. You would now have eternity to express yourself.
—The Tattoo Artist, Vampire: The Masquerade - Clanbook: Tzimisce
Sekula thought that the tattoos upon his lover's body were fascinating, even if he found it almost impossible to imagine the pain that their creation must have caused her. Apart from her face and hands, her skin was entirely obscured by the illustrations, the monstrous distorted faces blending into one another so it was almost impossible to identify individual beings among them. Yet it was the eyes that were the most disturbing aspect, even for Sekula. There were so many of them, large and small, encompassing every imaginable color, like oval wounds upon her body. Now, as she advanced toward Sandy Crane, they seemed to alter, the pupils expanding and contracting, the eyes rotating in their sockets, exploring this new and unfamiliar place, with the drunken woman now cowering before them.
