Colour tattoo sleeve of red and pink peonies with green leaves on a dark background, covering the upper arm and shoulder of a woman in a black vest top.

Peony sleeve on upper arm and shoulder

Botanical · Upper arm · Colour · Photo

Three peony blooms in red, deep pink and coral stack down the upper arm and shoulder, with olive-green leaves and buds between them. The petals are shaded with soft gradients and fine highlights, and small pale bokeh-style circles sit across the black background. The composition follows the curve of the arm, with the largest bloom near the shoulder.

Botanical Japanese Upper arm Shoulder Peony Flower Leaves Bud

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Nessa Obuya carried three peony roots in a tin the size of a hand, wrapped in oilcloth, through nine years of dark between the stars. The ship's almanac said peonies needed cold to wake, and the Drift had no cold to spare, so she kept the tin under her bunk and talked to it when the lights dimmed. The other crew called her the bulb-wife and left her alone.

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When the ship reached the grey ring of Halvard, the captain ordered the bay sealed against dust. Nessa broke the seal anyway. She carried the roots to the frozen stock room, set them in a bed of melt-water, and stood there until her fingers stopped working. Three nights later a pale green shoot pushed through the mulch, then a leaf the colour of old copper, then a bud the size of a plum.

The blooms came in the order the roots had been packed. First the red one, dense and fierce, opening at the top of the hydroponic rack. Then the coral, then the deep pink, each lit from below by the grow-lamps, so that the pollen drifted through the bay like slow sparks. The crew came in to look and stayed longer than they meant to. Nobody said what they were all thinking, which was that the ship had not smelled sweetness in four years.

On the last night before docking, Nessa cut the largest bloom and carried it to the forward port. Beyond the glass there was only black, with a scatter of far suns like lantern light on dark water. She pressed the stem against the cold pane so the petals faced outward, and she left it there, because a flower that had come so far should be allowed to see where it was going.