Black and grey leaf scroll tattoo beside script lettering reading 'It's supposed to be you and me against the world', on the side of the ribs.

Leaf scroll and script quote on the ribs

Lettering · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A shaded leafy scroll, resembling an acanthus or fern frond, runs vertically down the side of the body with a curled tip at the top. Beside it, black cursive script in a flowing hand reads 'It's supposed to be you and me against the world' across six lines. The ink is black with grey shading on the scroll and a faint warm tint in the skin around it, with the lettering set neatly to the right of the ornament.

Lettering Botanical Ribs Leaf Scroll Foliage Script Quote Acanthus

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Kallias had the chisel angled against the marble before the lamp was lit, and Demetria was already complaining about the dust settling in her hair. The commission was a capital for a sanctuary on the hill above Corinth, twelve acanthus leaves to be coaxed out of a block that had cost the workshop a season's profit. His master wanted the tips cut sharp, like shoots pushing through limestone after rain. Kallias wanted them to curl.

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"Nobody will look up that far," Demetria said, handing him the water jar. "They'll look at the gods, the donors and their own sandals."

"Then they'll see what we did when nobody was looking."

She laughed at him, but she held the lamp steady while he worked the last scroll, the one that turned outward at the top like a fern uncoiling. When the master came round at dusk he ran a thumb along the leaves and grunted, which from him was praise, and went home to his supper.

The block left on the temple cart the next morning, and Kallias was not allowed near it again. But Demetria had cut the words herself, tiny and careful, on the underside of the abacus, where a priest would have to lie on his back with a torch to read them. It's supposed to be you and me against the world. Six short lines, none longer than a finger, and no one in the sanctuary ever thought to look.