Small blue butterfly tattoo with dark outlines on the upper back near the shoulder blade, with a thin gold chain visible at the neck.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Blue butterfly on upper back

Fine line · Back · Colour · Photo

A small butterfly with pale and mid blue wings and dark linework sits on the upper back, angled towards the shoulder. The wings show soft shading and fine detail on their edges and body, with antennae extending outwards. The plain skin and dark background keep the focus on the tattoo.

Fine line Back Butterfly Insect

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm, you asked me to stop writing about the bees, so I will write about the butterfly instead, though it is the same kind of trouble. It came in through the open scriptorium window on Tuesday, while I was copying the Lenten psalter, and settled on the corner of the page where I had just blotted a capital B. Its wings were the blue of skimmed milk over slate, paler at the tips, and the dark veins ran through them like the lead in the chapel glass.

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I did not move. Brother Oswin says a thing that lands on you is either a blessing or an omen, and he has never been able to tell which before supper. I counted the scalloped edges of the forewing twice, the way we count the hours, and then it lifted and went down the cloister walk towards the herb garden, where the abbot's rosemary has gone to seed.

This morning I found the same blue in the dye jar Brother Matthew keeps for the altar cloths, the one he swore had burned in the autumn fire. I have not told the abbot. I have only mixed a little of the powder into my ink and left the rest drying on the sill in the sun. If the butterfly comes back, I have left the window open.