Small fine line outline of a butterfly on the inner wrist, shown with the palm facing the camera and the ink faded to a pinkish tone.

Butterfly tattoo on the inner wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Colour · Photo

A small butterfly outline sits on the inner wrist, with the palm turned towards the camera. The linework is thin and unshaded, with simple wing detailing. The ink has faded to a soft pink-red against pale skin, and the plain cream wall behind keeps the focus on the wrist.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The butterflies came down the hill every spring when the blackthorn broke into flower, and the people of Hollin Cross said they were the souls of the drowned miller's daughters, come back to see whether the mill wheel still turned. Nobody believed it, but nobody cut the blackthorn either.

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Old Teodor kept the bridge at the forest edge and had a rule about them. You did not catch a butterfly, and you did not let one land on you without standing very still until it chose to leave. His grandson Piet did not like rules that had no reason behind them, so one April he swatted a pale orange one off the bridge rail and felt the wind of it on his face like a small reproach.

That night the river rose without rain. In the morning the lower field was a lake and Piet's goats stood bleating on the roof of the byre. Teodor said nothing. He only walked down to the water's edge with a bowl of barley and a thread of red wool, and he left them both on a flat stone for three days, until the water went down and the goats came off the roof.

When Piet was grown and had a daughter of his own, he took her to the bridge in spring and showed her how to hold out a finger, palm up, and wait. A butterfly came and rested on the soft inside of her wrist, opening and closing its wings as if counting. Piet kept still, and told her that some debts are paid by standing still long enough.

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