Black and grey ink design of pine trees on a mountain ridge beneath a starry sky and a shooting star, framed by a dashed circle and triangles, drawn on cream paper.

Pine forest and night sky in a circle

Geometric · Black and grey · Flash

A circular design shows a dark forest of pine trees along a mountain ridge, with a night sky of soft grey wash, scattered white dots and a shooting star. A dashed circle and rows of small triangles and dots frame the scene, with a nested triangle hanging from the base. The linework is fine and hatched for the trees, while the sky is shaded with diluted ink on cream paper.

Geometric Pine tree Forest Mountain Night sky Star Triangle Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the step there, and keep your hand on the rock, because the pass has eaten better walkers than you. My grandmother used to say the mountain was not wicked, only very patient, and that patience looks the same as cruelty when you are carrying a sack of salt up a goat track in the dark.

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So there was a carter called Tobiah Renn who had promised to bring a load of salt over to the upper villages before the snow shut the road. He was late, the mules were lame, and when he reached the top of the ridge the light was already gone. He could see the pines below him like a black fur laid along the slope, and above them the sky had come out all at once, grey and thick with stars, the way it does up there when there is no town to spoil it. He stopped to let the mules blow. That was when he saw the star go, a thin white line drawn across the top of the sky, slow enough that he had time to take off his cap.

He said afterwards that he had made a wish, though he would not tell anyone what it was. What he did tell was that the mules stopped being lame the moment he started down again, and that the pines seemed to step aside to let him through, one row after another, like a crowd in a church.

He reached the upper villages by first light. The salt was dry, the snow held off another week, and the children of Harrow Fold were given a pinch each on their tongues to taste the sea. Tobiah never crossed the pass after dark again, but he always looked up on clear nights, and that, my lambs, is why you do not hurry on the mountain when the stars are out.