Black and grey realism tattoo of a seated fairy with lavender-tinted wings among swirling foliage, on the upper back by the shoulder blade.

Fairy and foliage scrollwork on a shoulder blade

Realism · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

A seated fairy with long hair and translucent wings is surrounded by ornate scrolls, leaves and curling foliage. The fairy and foliage are rendered in soft grey shading with smooth gradients, while the wings carry pale lavender and purple tones. The design fills the upper back and reaches over the shoulder, with the fairy placed near the centre of the composition.

Realism Botanical Shoulder Back Fairy Wing Foliage Scrollwork Leaves Swirl

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the third stair, it's loose, and I'll tell you the rest while you hold the lamp steady. Nell Harrow kept the light on Scarrow Head the winter her husband's chest gave out, and she was the first to see the fairy in the ivy on the north wall. Grey as candle smoke she was, from her crown to her bare heels, with wings like the inside of a mussel shell that caught the lamp and went lilac, then violet, then nothing at all when the beam swung past.

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She sat with her knees drawn up and her hair pooled down the stones, and every dusk she unwound one curling leaf of the ivy and let it drop, slow as a feather, towards the reef. Where a leaf landed the rocks went quiet, and the boats coming in on the flood knew to bear east of the Teeth. Nell asked her once what she wanted for it. The fairy only tilted her head and looked at the sea, the way you'd look at someone you were sorry for.

Then came the fog that lasted three nights, thick enough to lose a man on his own doorstep. On the third night the lamp guttered at midnight, and Nell climbed the iron stairs with her last can of oil and found the glass dark and the fairy kneeling beside it, her wings gone the colour of wet ash. She had been feeding the flame with her own light. Nell poured the oil, struck the match with shaking hands, and the beam went out across the water like a held breath let go.

Come the morning there was a smack coming in clean on the tide, and a curl of green ivy lying on the gallery floor, and nothing else. My grandfather's boy still cuts that wall back every spring. He leaves one leaf standing, and he says that's where the fairy keeps her seat warm.