Neo-traditional butterfly tattoo with purple shaded wings and a realistic eye in each wing, placed on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Butterfly wings with eyes on the side ribs

Neo-trad · Ribs · Colour · Photo

A butterfly with wings shaped around two realistic eyes, one large on the left wing and a smaller one on the right, sits on the side of the torso. Bold black outlines and dark linework define the wing edges, while purple shading fills the wing panels and the eyes are rendered in soft grey with a small highlight. The design is centred on the skin with a dark, drip-like shape above the wings and a plain background of skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Come nearer the fire, for the wind off the moat has teeth tonight and I will not tell this twice. You want the butterfly of Harrow Keep? Then hush, and listen the way the old stones listen. When the roof fell in, the swifts flew off and the ivy took the great hall, but one thing stayed behind in the broken arrow slit above the postern. It was violet, the colour of the bruise a dropped plum leaves on your thumb, and its wings were edged in black as thick as pitch. Every wing bore an eye. The large one watched the north road, where the old lord rode out and never came home. The small one watched the well, because a serving girl had dropped her silver ring down it and had never stopped looking for it.

Keep reading

Osric Vane kept the keys on a cord round his neck and climbed the hill each dusk to count the sheep. He laughed at the butterfly and said it had no more sense than the pigeons. One evening a drip of rain ran from the gutter above the arch, slow and black as ink from a quill, and the butterfly lifted its wings and turned its great eye on him. Osric counted the sheep twice that night and got a different number both times. He never climbed the hill again, and the flock was counted by the eye alone.

So if you go up to Harrow tonight and see a violet shape resting on the stone, do not wave your lantern at it. It is only keeping the count. And if it opens the small eye and turns it toward the well, you had best look down there yourself, because the ring is still at the bottom, and whoever brings it up will be the next one it watches.

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