Black and grey fine line tattoo of a dandelion releasing seeds that turn into small birds, running up the ankle and onto the foot.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Dandelion seeds becoming birds on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

A dandelion seed head sits at the base of the foot and releases a trail of seeds that change into small flying birds rising up towards the ankle. The linework is fine and mostly unshaded, with soft grey shading on the dandelion head and stem. The ink is black and grey on pale skin, and the tattoo fills the lower side of the foot in a diagonal path.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nobody aboard the Harriet Lane ate the morning soup until Ada Rennick had blown the dandelion clock on the galley step. She did it with her back to the stove, the way her grandmother had done on the Baltic run, and she counted the breaths out loud because the cabin boy could not count past seven. Pim was thirteen and had been crying into the potato sacks since Gravesend.

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The old tale said a seed that landed on the rail would turn into a bird before it touched the sea, and the bird would carry one wish home to whoever had let go of it. Ada had never seen it happen. Still, she gave Pim the last clock from the step and told him to hold it facing the wind and not to close his eyes.

He blew hard and the seeds went out over the bulwark in a rush. Three of them caught the light and lifted, and wings came out of them, small and quick, black against the grey water. One bird turned back and settled on the brass rim of the galley hatch, looked at the boy with its head on one side, then went after the others towards the coast.

Ada said nothing. She scraped the soup pot and handed him a spoon. By the time the Harriet Lane raised the Humber light, the stalk in his fist was bare, and Pim, who had wished for his mother's kitchen, asked whether it still counted if the bird had gone to her instead.

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