Fine line black tattoo of a fairy with small star marks on the upper back, just below the nape of the neck.

Fairy and stars on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A small outline tattoo of a fairy in flight, with her arms raised and wings spread, sits centrally on the upper back. Small four-point stars surround the figure on both sides. The linework is thin and single-toned in black ink, with no shading, and the design is framed by bare skin, with the subject's head turned away and hair falling over the neck.

Fine line Back Fairy Star Wing

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the lock at Sallow Bend jammed again this morning, so I've had an hour sat on the gunwale with nothing to do but write. Dad's fairy is still on the bow, though the paint's gone grey and one wing snapped off in the winter ice. You'd laugh at me, hauling a boat through three counties to keep a bit of wood with a face on it. But she was the first thing he carved after Mum left, and he used to say she'd keep the cut clear of weed if you asked nicely.

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Three nights ago I tied up below the old mill and couldn't sleep. The stars came out thick over the water, the way they do out past the town lights, so I got up and sat on the roof with the tin of pencils. I counted them, four points each, like someone had pressed a compass into the dark. Then I climbed down to the cabin and did the thing I'd been putting off. I took Dad's knife to the figurehead's left wing and scraped away the rot, and found it was only painted over a thinner, cleaner shape underneath.

Under the grey was a girl in flight, arms up, reaching for the stars I'd been counting. Not a fairy at all, Dad always said, just a girl who wanted to go somewhere. I don't know whether he meant me or himself.

I've left her as she is. I've bought a tin of gloss, though, and I'll paint in the stars on Saturday, when we reach the top lock and you can come down and see. Your sister, Nell.