Black and white photo of a fine line arrow with the word fearless in cursive script on a person's ribs.

Arrow and fearless script on ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A fine line arrow with feathered fletching sits across the side of the ribs, with the word fearless written in a flowing script along its shaft. The linework is thin and even, with no shading, and the black ink appears crisp against the skin. The photograph is in black and white, with the tattoo centred in the frame and the torso partly covered by a grey sports bra and jeans.

Fine line Lettering Ribs Arrow Fearless Script Word Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The bow had hung above the kitchen door since the winter the mill pond froze solid, and nobody at Carrow Farm would take it down. Ada Penrose was nine that year and thought it a waste of good yew, hanging there gathering smoke from the range while the hens went hungry for want of a fox being shot.

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The fox came the second week of January, when the snow lay to the top of the gatepost and the henhouse door had been left latched by mistake. Her brother Tom said he would go after it with the spade. Her grandmother said nothing at all, only looked up at the bow. Ada reached it down herself. The arrow had three grey heron feathers for fletching, and along the shaft, burned in with a hot nail by a grandfather she had never met, was one word: fearless.

"It isn't a promise," her grandmother said from her chair by the fire. "It's only which way to point."

Ada went out in her wellingtons with the bow held the way she had been shown. The fox sat on the ridge above the frozen pond, watching her with an expression of mild interest. Her hands would not keep still. She breathed out slowly, the way she had been taught, and let go. The arrow went wide and vanished into a drift. The fox rose, shook itself, and walked away across the ice without any hurry at all.

She waded through the drift to find the arrow. The word had gone dark with mud, and she rubbed it clean with her thumb. When she hung the bow back on its nail, the shaft faced the room. Nobody mentioned the hens at supper, and by spring she had worn the grip smooth, and the word had rubbed almost to nothing, though she could still read it with her eyes shut.