Two colour tattoos on the inner forearms: pink peonies with violet flowers on the left, and a pale blue swallowtail butterfly among pink flowers on the right, in a botanical realism style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Peonies and a butterfly on forearms

Botanical · Forearm · Colour · Photo

The left forearm shows pink and peach peonies with small violet blossoms and red buds, with green leaves at the lower edge. The right forearm shows a pale blue swallowtail butterfly with dark black outlines resting on a stem of pink flowers and green leaves. Both pieces use soft blended shading and realistic colour on the skin, with the designs wrapping naturally around the arms.

Botanical Realism Forearm Peony Flower Butterfly Rose Bud Leaves Stem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The peonies had already gone over by the time you reached the far wall of the orchard, their heads browned and bowed like wet paper, but the phlox along the bottom of the ladder row was still doing its best. Mara had said the swallowtails would come for it. She had said it the way she said most things, flat and certain, while she hosed the mud off her boots by the back door and did not look at you.

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You picked the caterpillar leaves off the stems first, because your father always did, and because your hands needed something to do. The butterfly came down the row at half past five, pale blue with black veins at the edges, and settled on the phlox as if it had been invited. Mara came out with two mugs of tea and stood beside you without speaking. She set one mug on the fence post. Its tea was already going cold.

Forty years of pruning had taught her the orchard's moods, and she knew before you did that the frost would not come this year. "Pink for the bees," she said, nodding at the red buds along the wall, "and peach for whoever's left to look at them." You laughed, though it came out wrong. The butterfly lifted, circled the old pear once, and went over the hedge toward the lane.

Next morning you dug up the peony roots from the dead bed and wrapped them in damp sacking, and you didn't ask her where she wanted them planted. You knew. The soil by the gate was the only ground that drained properly, and the gate was where the lane began.