Close view of a colourful traditional-style tattoo of a figure with red flowers on the outer forearm of a woman wearing a pink t-shirt and black leather skirt.

Colourful figure tattoo on a forearm

Traditional · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

The photograph is cropped from the neck to the knees and shows a woman in a pink t-shirt, black leather skirt and sunglasses. A tattoo on the outer forearm of the arm on the right of the frame shows a figure with a dark head covering and red floral shapes, outlined in black. The colour is bold and the composition places the tattoo beside the sleeve edge and wrist jewellery.

Traditional Forearm Figure Flower Rose Hat Pin-up

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The hat was for the Queen's midsummer wedding, and Mistress Cressida Vane had given me until the bells of St Hild's to finish the crown. I was seventeen and had already pinned more red silk roses than I could count, their wire stems bent by my own thumbs until the tips of my fingers stung.

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The trouble was the brim. It was Ashfen velvet, black as a rook's wing, and every bloom I set against it simply vanished into the dark. Mistress Vane came in at dusk, lifted the thing to the candle, turned it slowly, and set it back on its stand with one tap of her knuckle. She said nothing, which was worse than scolding.

So I unpicked the roses from the crown that night and sewed them into the lining instead, a whole hidden garden stitched beneath the brim where no one could see it. By morning my eyes were raw and my palms were pricked through in a dozen places.

At the wedding the bride stood plain and still under the cathedral arch, the hat dark and sober as a funeral until she tipped her head back, laughing at something the king had said. The red came tumbling out from under the brim like wine spilling across a table. Mistress Vane found my hand in the crowd and held it, and she did not let go until the bells stopped.