Black ink flash drawing of an axe whose handle grows into leafy branches, with two crossed arrows and small drops above the leaves.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Axe with branching leaves and crossed arrows

Botanical · Black and grey · Flash

A black ink drawing of an axe head with its handle rising into a stem that splits into leafy branches at the lower half. Two arrows cross behind the stem near the middle, with a small droplet beside each arrow tip. The linework is clean and hatched on the axe head and handle, with simple outlined leaves, all set on a plain grey background.

Botanical Axe Arrow Leaves Branches Stem Droplet

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm had not sharpened the axe in three winters, and when he finally carried it down to the wheel by the mill race, the grindstone would not bite. The steel went dull under his thumb as fast as he could turn the crank. Old Brother Hugh watched from the bakehouse door with flour to his elbows. "It's not the stone that's stubborn," he said. "Ask the yew what it wants before you ask it to fall."

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The yew stood over the infirmary garden, older than the walls, and its roots had cracked the cistern. The abbot gave his leave with a single nod. So at dusk Anselm walked up to it with the axe on his shoulder, and two crows lifted off the wall and settled on the lowest bough to watch. He set the blade to the bark. Beyond the orchard a huntsman's horn sounded, and two arrows came whistling over the wall, struck the trunk on either side of him, and stuck there, quivering. Cold drops ran from their fletching down the wood like rain that had not yet begun.

He did not swing. He sat in the wet grass and listened to the drips until it was full dark, and then he walked back down and hung the axe on the nail by the infirmary door.

By Lent the handle had sprouted. Green leaves had pushed out of the grain in pairs, and a root-thread had crept down the wall to the ground. The abbot looked at it a long while and said the wood had decided for them both.