Black and grey photo of a fine line arrow tattoo running along the inner forearm, with a dark knitted sleeve pushed up above it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Fine line arrow on a forearm

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A single arrow runs diagonally along the inner forearm, with a pointed arrowhead at the top, a small circle and two short tick marks along the shaft, and a feathered fletching at the base. The linework is thin and even, with the feathers drawn as fine parallel strokes and no shading. The photograph is black and grey against a pale arm, with a dark jumper sleeve and a plain background.

Fine line Forearm Arrow Feather

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Harold Penny had been cutting feathers for the Ashdown estate for thirty-one years, and he could tell a goose wing from a turkey one with his eyes shut. His apprentice, Ruth, could not yet. She sat at the bench with the glue pot going cold beside her, trying to bind three grey-barred feathers to a cane shaft without the quills twisting, and each time they slid, she swore under her breath and started again.

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"Why the ticks?" she asked, once the arrow was straight enough to hold up to the window. Harold ran a thumbnail along the two short marks above the fletching. "Those are where the feathers sit. Get them off by a hair and the thing flies like a drunk man." He tapped the small ring further up the shaft. "That's the balance point. Everything else is for show."

Ruth set the arrow on the bench and said nothing for a while. The shop smelled of linseed and wet wool. Outside, the lamplighter was working his way down Cooper's Row, and a dog barked twice and gave up.

When Harold came back from his dinner, the arrow had gone from the bench. In its place was a sheet of paper, and on it Ruth had drawn a row of small strokes, one for every feather she had ruined since she started. There were forty-seven. Beside the last one she had written, in careful capitals, ENOUGH TO BE GOOD.