Black and grey tattoo of pine trees and mountains inside a circle, with the words The journey is the reward around the edge, on the side of the body.

Pine trees and mountains in a circle with a quote

Traditional · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A circular badge shows two tall pine trees in the foreground, a smaller pine beside them, and a dark mountain ridge under soft clouds. The trees and ridge use bold black outlines with soft grey shading, and the clouds are rendered with lighter smudged tones. The words THE JOURNEY IS THE REWARD run around the outside of the circle in black capitals on a skin tone background.

Traditional Lettering Ribs Pine tree Mountain Cloud Quote Landscape

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Brother Anselm went down the mountain in the first week of thaw, with a leather bag for lamp oil and a list the cellarer had written on the back of a psalter leaf. The path ran through the pines for a day and a half before it reached the valley, and the monastery bell could not be heard past the second bend. He counted the switchbacks because counting kept his feet honest.

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On the third morning a cloud sat in the gully like milk in a bowl, and he waited in it for an hour rather than walk blind off the edge. When it lifted, the ridge stood black against a sky the colour of pewter, and two old firs leaned over the path as though they were discussing him. He gave them a nod and they said nothing, which he took as courtesy.

He reached the village of Saint Oda's Ford by dusk and found the oil merchant dead since autumn, his shop shuttered, his son gone to the coast. Anselm sat on the step with his empty bag and laughed until the baker's wife came out to see if he was ill. She gave him bread and a jar of honey for the abbot, and told him the upper road was clear.

He climbed back the next morning with the honey wrapped in a cloth against his ribs. At the bend where the cloud had sat, he stopped and looked down at the valley he had come from, small and green and full of smoke. The bell rang for Sext behind the ridge, and he found he was already walking toward it.