Close photo of a dark blue-grey ornamental fleur-de-lis tattoo on the side of a torso, with a hand with pale nails resting at the top right.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Ornamental fleur-de-lis on the side of the torso

Blackwork · Ribs · Colour · Photo

A fleur-de-lis is tattooed on bare skin, filled with patterned white linework and swirling ornament that leaves lighter shapes within the dark outline. The ink reads as dark blue-grey, and the design is centred against soft, warmly lit skin. A hand with pale blue nails rests at the upper right of the frame, and the background is dark and out of focus.

Blackwork Ribs Fleur-de-lis Ornament Pattern Hand

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Ada had cut the pattern twice before Mr Fenwick would let it go up on the lodge wall. The first fleur-de-lis came out too heavy, its petals as thick as pit props, and he held it to the window and said the men would take it for a bailiff's badge. So she carried the card back to the kitchen table and worked the ornament into the petals with the bent awl she used for lace, one small hole at a time, scrolls folding inside scrolls, until the paper looked less like a shape than frost on a window.

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The lodge was a hard place to paint in winter. Breath hung over the benches, the lamps smoked, and the blue-black paint went on thin and streaked. Ada stood on a stool and rubbed the stencil through with a dabber while the others held their breath. When she lifted it, the lily stood dark against the cloth, and the pricked holes had left their pale lines behind, white filigree running through the dark as if something had been let in from the other side.

Fenwick said nothing for a long time. Then he asked whether she could do the lamp-room door as well, and she said she would want a bigger card and a fresh awl.

The banner hung in the rescue hall for thirty years after that. On the nights the lamps were lit behind it, the white lines glowed through the cloth, and the younger men would stop by the door to look at the lily, trying to find the place where Ada's awl had gone through.