Black ink handwritten word brave with a line and arrow beneath it, drawn as a tattoo design on a white background.

Brave script with arrow design

Lettering · Black and grey · Flash

The image shows the word brave written in a loose, joined handwritten script in black ink, with a thin horizontal line ending in an arrowhead running beneath it. The linework is uniform and monoline, with no shading or fill. The design sits centrally on a plain white background with no body part or skin visible.

Lettering Fine line Arrow Script Handwriting Word

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell, the hall smells of wet coats and lilies, and your mother has cried twice before the registrar has even found his glasses. I am writing this at the trestle by the fire exit because I could not face the speeches yet, and because I promised your grandad I would tell you something before you walked out of that door.

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You remember the shed at Haydon Bridge, the tin of arrows he kept on the top shelf, fletched with feathers he swore came from a pheasant he had outwitted. He never let you loose a shot without writing the word on the card that went with it. Brave, in those square capitals of his, and beneath it the thin line with the head pointing forward. He said the word was for the walk to the target, not the hitting of it.

When we cleared his coat pocket after the funeral, I found that card folded in with a bus ticket from 1974. He had crossed out the capitals and written the word again in a running, joined-up hand, smaller, as if he had been practising for someone who would read it slowly. Underneath he had added: the arrow does not care how frightened you are, so keep your eye on where it has to land.

So go on. Take your father's arm, keep your shoulders down, and do not look at the crowd. The card is in my handbag, and I have pinned it inside your bouquet, where nobody will see it but you. Love, Auntie Pat.