Pencil sketch of a pair of antlers framing the handwritten line 'Am I more than you bargained for yet' on plain paper, shown as a tattoo design rather than on skin.

Pencil antlers with handwritten quote

Black and grey · Flash

A pencil drawing on pale paper shows two deer antlers curving outwards from the centre, each shaded with soft grey graphite. Black ink handwriting in the middle reads 'Am I more than you bargained for yet' over several lines. The composition is centred and simple, with the antlers mirroring each other and the text sitting in the gap between them.

Antler Deer Script Quote Handwriting

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Hester, the stag came into the cloister again on Tuesday, during Vespers, and Brother Osric swore it stepped over the threshold as if it had been invited. Its antlers were hung with the week's frost. Brother Anselm wanted it shot for the larder, but Prior Edwin said the fen had been generous to us and we owed it a mercy, so the bell was rung softly and nobody went near it.

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You will remember the winter the well failed. I went out past the willows at dusk with a bucket and a lantern, and I made a bargain with whatever moved in the reeds. I offered my ploughing, my bread and most of my nights if the water came back. It came back within the week. Nobody else knows of my promise, but the stag has come every Michaelmas since and stands at the edge of the orchard looking at me as though taking inventory.

Yesterday I took the lantern out again and told it plainly that I had kept my side. I have given you the bread, the ploughing and the sleep, I said. Am I more than you bargained for yet? It did not answer. It lowered its head to the wet grass, and in the lantern light I saw that its antlers were not the yellow of old bone but the soft grey of pencil shading, as if someone had drawn them on the mist and then thought better of rubbing them out.

I have asked Osric to copy the question onto the wall beside the scriptorium door, in his neatest hand. Anselm says it is blasphemy and Edwin says it is a fair question. When the stag comes next, I shall let it answer for itself. Your loving brother, Tobias. P.S. Do not tell Anselm about the lantern.