Black line-work tattoo of peonies, leaves and buds on the side of a torso, above the waistband of grey trousers, in a botanical fine line style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Floral line tattoo on the side ribs

Botanical · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A cluster of outlined flowers, including large peony-like blooms, smaller rosettes, buds and leafy sprigs, sweeps from the upper side of the ribs down towards the hip. The linework is uniform and dark, with little or no shading inside the petals, and the design is rendered in black ink only. The skin around it is bare and the image is cropped at the torso, showing a navel piercing and a white waistband.

Botanical Fine line Ribs Flower Peony Rose Leaves Bud Foliage

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The pass closed on the Tuesday, and by Thursday the only guests left at the Coldharbour were the carrier, a curate with chilblains, and Mrs Imogen Pell, who had come up from Kendal with a leather portfolio and no intention of leaving before the road did.

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She spent her evenings at the long table by the range, drawing. Not in paint, she told me, because the light in a snowbound valley drains every colour to grey by four o'clock, and a flower is only honest when you can trust its outline. So she worked in black ink, nib and pen, and she would not let me look until the page was finished. When she did show me, it was a cluster of peonies sweeping down the margin, rosettes tucked between their petals, buds on thin stems, feathered sprigs of leaf reaching for the corner as if trying to get out of the frame.

"Every line has to be decided," she said. "Nothing can hide behind shadow."

On the last night of the storm the power failed and the room went blue with lamplight. Mrs Pell stood, pressed the drawing flat against the window where the frost had grown into ferns, and traced the outline with one finger on the glass. The breath of the room fogged the pane, and where her finger had passed, the lines stayed clear.

By morning the road was ploughed and she was gone. I found the drawing rolled inside the curate's hat, with a note tucked beside it: keep the lines, the colour comes back in spring. I still have it, and each February I take it out and wait for the thaw to show me what she meant.