Black ink dotwork drawing of a dagger piercing an open umbrella, with raindrops and the lettering True Friends and Stab you in the front, shown as a tattoo design on paper.

Dagger and umbrella with True Friends lettering

Dotwork · Black and grey · Flash

A black ink drawing of a dagger passing through an open umbrella, with three teardrop shapes falling beneath it. The umbrella canopy and dagger hilt are shaded with fine stippled dots, while the outlines and blade edges are drawn in solid bold strokes. The phrases True Friends and Stab you in the front surround the motif in blocky hand-drawn capitals on a plain white background.

Dotwork Lettering Dagger Umbrella Raindrop Lettering Text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Marjorie,

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You will be pleased to hear the umbrella held. Mr Penhallow at the forge swears the ribs are whalebone, which I did not know a forge could get hold of, but he has never once lied to me about money. Pay him the rest when you come up for Michaelmas.

The business at the lych gate was not a happy one. Edith Coombes announced to the whole congregation that I had been seen at the Dunmore farm on a Sunday. I had. I had been seen carrying a sack of her own eggs, which she had given me herself. She said it to my face, bold as brass, with the rain coming down through the yews, and I stood there thinking that at least she had the decency to look at me while she did it. That is what I want from a friend. Not a knife in the dark behind the wood store, but one held up in plain daylight, so you always know which way it is coming.

So I went down to the forge and asked for a dagger shaped like a brolly, and Penhallow laughed until he had to sit on the anvil. He drove the blade up through the spokes himself and we settled the lettering over a pot of tea. He wanted True Friends across the top. I wanted the other line, and he said it was ruder than a hog at a wedding, but he has been wrong about lettering before and I have never once been wrong about Edith.

I carry it to church now, furled, every Sunday. When she passes me the hymn book she holds it out to the side, away from the point, and I have never once had to tell her why.