Back view of a woman with a small fine line tattoo of a flock of seven black birds on her upper back, near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Flock of birds on upper back

Fine line · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A woman seen from behind, with her hair in a loose twist and an off-shoulder grey knit jumper. A small flock of about seven black bird silhouettes sits on her upper back near the shoulder blade, drawn in fine, simple linework. The tattoo is in black ink on a plain textured plaster wall background, with soft natural light.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ysolde,

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The seven swifts left the belfry of Carrow Mere on Tuesday, just after the bell for vespers, and I have been trying since to put down how they went. Master Oswin says they were bound for the salt marshes of Thessan, as they are every autumn, but the swifts did not behave like birds that know their road. They circled the bell three times, then turned all at once, the way the Guild's ledger men turn when the auditor walks in.

I counted them from the wall walk until the light went. Seven, and always seven, though the old keepers used to say there were eight once, and the eighth was lost to the sea-fog in the year the old queen died. You will think me fanciful. I am only writing what I saw, and you know I am no poet.

The thing that kept me awake was the last of them. It fell back from the others at the grey edge of the sky, and for a moment it hung there with its wings out, as if it were deciding. Then it caught the wind and was gone after the rest.

Come home before the frost, Ysolde. The tower is cold without you, and Oswin has begun telling the story of the eighth bird to the boys in the scullery, which means he believes it.

Your brother, Tam

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