Black tattoo of two crossed axes inside a circle of runic-style script, on the inner forearm or wrist.

Crossed axes in a runic circle on a forearm

Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A solid black tattoo shows two axe heads crossed in an X, with their long handles meeting at the centre. A ring of angular runic-style characters encircles the axes. The black ink is bold and even, with crisp edges on the runes and smooth fill on the axe heads, set against pale skin under indoor lighting.

Forearm Axe Rune Circle Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tova Brennick had the steadiest hands on the Skelda Reach, and the cutting crew never let her forget it. The drowned freighter groaned around them as the pressure shifted, and the mooring cable they needed to free was still a hand's width from the bulkhead. Anders passed her the long-hafted axe, its blade pitted from a hundred cuts through sheathing.

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"Read me the ring," she said, because the old crews on Skelda swore a team that could read its own circle would not drown. Anders squinted at the oath stamped around the hatch plate, the angular letters worn smooth by generations of gloved thumbs. He read it slowly, one rune at a time, while she set her feet on the slick deck and waited for the hull to settle.

The cable parted with a crack like a starter pistol. Seawater came through the gap in a thin silver rope, then stopped as the sealant foam caught it and swelled. The deck tilted, held, and tilted back. Anders whooped and slapped the plate. Tova didn't. She was looking at the two axe marks scored into the metal beneath the oath, deeper than any cut she had made that day, and wondering who had needed to cut their way out of this same wreck before them.

Back at the dock, the ledger clerk asked for the crew's mark. Anders scratched his rune beside the circle on the hatch, crooked and proud, and Tova saw the ring had room for one more name. She took the stylus from him and added her own beneath it, careful as always, so the next crew would know who had come up through the flood.