Fine line tattoo of an arrow with pink and lilac feather details and the word resilient in script, on the inner forearm.

Arrow, feather and resilient script on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A black linework arrow runs along the forearm, with a script word reading resilient set across a feather-like motif. The feather has soft pink and lilac leaf shapes filled in beside the thin black strokes. Black linework dominates the composition, with the colour kept to the feather accents against the skin and a pink and white quilt behind.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Arrow Feather Script Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The goose feathers had to be split and steamed before Mabel Corran would let me touch them, and she never let me forget how long that took. We worked at the bench under the north window, where the light stayed even, and I learned to tell a left wing from a right by the curl of the quill.

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The club's prize shafts were her pride. She dyed the vanes with madder for the rose and logwood for the lilac, then bound them with waxed thread so tight a man could hardly see where the thread began. Tom Freer, the squire's groom, came in every Thursday asking why his arrows wandered. Mabel never answered him straight. She took one of his shafts, bent the vane between her thumb and finger until it lay nearly flat, and let it go. 'It bends, and then it comes back,' she said. 'That's the whole trick. Stiff things snap.'

On the day of the county shoot the wind came off the downs in gusts that flattened the grass. Tom's first arrow skidded wide and the crowd groaned. He stood with his jaw set, then loosed the second, and I watched the feathers flatten against the air and spring back, one after another, as the shaft found the gold. He didn't shout. He walked up the field, pulled the arrow out, and held it against his cheek for a long moment.

That night Mabel slid a strip of paper into the lid of the box where the prize shafts lived. She had written one word on it in her narrow hand, and the ink was still wet when she pressed it flat. I've kept it in my own tool case ever since.