Realistic black, grey and blue magpie tattoo in flight with bare branches, placed on the side of the torso.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Magpie in flight on a branch

Realism · Ribs · Mixed · Photo

A magpie with outstretched wings swoops towards a bare branch, its blue-tinted wings contrasting with the black and grey body. The feathers are shaded in fine gradations, and dark branches and scattered dots spread around the bird. Blue wing colour sits against the monochrome body and branchwork, with the design centred on the skin.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tom, the rooks have finally left the east tower, and in their place a magpie has taken up residence in the one ash tree still standing in the bailey. Mrs Haddow counted seven of them on the wall last Tuesday and swore one for sorrow was the reason her hens stopped laying. I told her the hens had simply had enough of her, which earned me a clip round the ear and a pie I wasn't meant to have.

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The castle is worse than when you left. The roof of the great hall came down in February and took the minstrels' gallery with it, and Mr Ferris from the council has put up a sign saying KEEP OUT in letters so tidy it looks like a joke. I go up anyway, mostly to the solar where the window frames the valley. There's a bare branch growing out of the masonry there, black as a fishbone, and the magpie comes to sit on it every morning around seven, tipping its head at me as if I owe it money.

Yesterday I took the old iron key from the hook in the kitchen and climbed the spiral stair to the top. The door had rusted solid but gave under my shoulder. Inside there was nothing but pigeon feathers and a flat grey stone with the initials E.R. cut into it, and below them the date, 1643. I carried the stone down in my apron pocket. It's on the windowsill now, and the bird has been watching it all afternoon.

Come home at Easter if you can. The magpie flies off whenever I'm near, but I think it's learned I'm not the danger. Your loving sister, Nell.

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