Two rose tattoos on a pair of shoulders: a blue rose with green leaves on the left and a black and grey realism rose on the right.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Blue and grey rose tattoos on both shoulders

Realism · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

A close view of a blue rose with green leaves on one shoulder, placed in a rounded patch, beside a larger black and grey rose on the other shoulder. The left rose uses soft blue shading with lighter highlights, while the right rose uses fine greyscale shading and darker tones for depth. The top of a dark strappy garment and a white wall are visible behind the shoulders.

Realism Botanical Shoulder Rose Leaves Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Hild, the frost took the cold frame again on Tuesday, so I have spent three days on my knees in the wet looking for the one cutting that might survive. Prior Edwin says I am wasting the chapter's oil on a superstition. He may be right, but you will remember the blue rose that grew over the south door when we were boys, the one the old cellarer swore had been bred from something brought back from Flanders.

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The grey rose came from the fire. When the lay brothers cleared the charred bramble from the orchard wall after the lightning, I found a root under the ash, still pale and stubborn. I potted it in a broken jug and set it by the infirmary window where the light is thin. It has put out three shoots and a bud the colour of pewter, closed tight as a fist. I have not dared tell anyone it is a rose at all.

Last week the miller's boy came with his mother, who wanted a bloom for her husband's coffin. I cut the blue one, the last of the old stock, and she held it to her cheek and said it smelled of rain on slate. I think she was crying, though she said it was the wind. I did not tell her the grey one is growing from the same ruined ground, that the two may be one plant that has forgotten itself.

I am sending you a cutting of the blue in oiled cloth, so you can try it in your own garden where the soil is kinder. Keep the grey bud out of the sun until it opens. If it opens blue, write and tell me, and if it opens dark, do not write at all, just come home.