Black and grey fine line tattoo of two crossed arrows with a rose and small flowers on the side of the ribs.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Crossed arrows and rose on the ribs

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black and grey tattoo shows two arrows crossed in an X, with a rose at the centre flanked by two small flowers and leaves. The linework is fine, and the rose petals are softened with stippled shading and light grey tones. The black and white photograph shows the side of a torso in a dark low-cut top, with a hand holding the fabric.

Fine line Botanical Ribs Arrow Rose Flower Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The lamp had been dark four nights when Father sent me up the hundred and twelve steps with the oil can and a message nobody wanted to write down. The wind came off Scarrow Skerry like it held a grudge, and the gallery rail was slick with spray. Below me the cobles were out past the reef, and I could count only three of them.

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Uncle Hal fletched arrows in the boathouse loft, the old way, goose feathers glued with pitch. He had taught the village boys to shoot across the bay when the herring were thin, and he kept a sheaf by the door for emergencies he never explained. Mam had grown one rose against the lee wall, pink and stubborn, and every spring she tied its first cane with twine that had come off a fish crate.

When the mist thickened I climbed back up, lifted the brass cover off the lamp, and did what Hal had shown me. I bound two arrows at the nock with the red wool from Mam's basket, shafts crossed, dipped the fletching in oil and struck a match. The first went wide into the dark. The second thudded somewhere out on the water, and a minute later a lantern swung back at me, then another.

Three boats came in at dawn with the rose still open on the wall. Hal said nothing about it. He only handed me the last arrow and nodded at the sea. I kept the sheaf after he died, and I still climb the steps when the fog comes in, because somebody has to know where the rocks are.