Black angel wings tattoo on the upper back near the shoulder blade of a person with long dark hair.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Angel wings on upper back

Back · Black and grey · Photo

A pair of black angel wings sits on the upper back, close to the shoulder blade, with the feathers drawn in outline and shaded strokes. The wings are angled outwards from a central point, with the left wing slightly smaller than the right. The photograph has a warm, dim light and a blurred background of a wall with framed pictures, and the subject's face is not shown.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ilse,

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The Count's clerk came up the valley road again this morning, asking whether the wing-scribe in Marrowgate still takes commissions for small pairs. I told him she does, but only for those who can sit still for three hours and who do not bring their own ink. He laughed at that. I did not. You will remember how Mother used to say that a good wing is drawn in the dark before it is drawn in the light, and that the outline is the promise while the shading is only the weather.

Yesterday Maud let me hold the iron comb while she worked on a pair for the Harbourmaster's youngest girl, who wants them put on her back where her collar will hide them when the bishop visits. Maud drew the left one a shade smaller than the right, which she says is what happens when a feather has been carried a long way before it lands. I asked her why she didn't simply make them match. She said matching is for people who have never been left behind by someone they loved, and then she bit off the thread and told me to go and fetch the lamp oil.

I keep thinking about that. The wings will be dark once they heal, dark as old ink on a cupboard door, and the girl will forget they are there until the day she needs to be lifted. Maud says that is the only kind of wing worth giving. I am not sure she is right, but I have started drawing my own pair on the back of the ledger, and they are crooked, and I like them better for it.

Write soon, and tell me whether the river froze at Lesser Wend.

Yours in ink, Bet

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