Colour tattoo of pink and yellow lotus flowers with turquoise butterflies and grey shading across the ribs and side of the torso.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pink and yellow lotus flowers on ribs

Neo-trad · Ribs · Colour · Photo

The tattoo covers the side of the torso and shows a large pink and yellow lotus bloom with a smaller pink bud above it, set among grey shaded swirls. Turquoise butterflies sit around the lower flowers and a light green leafy stem runs below. The petals use soft gradients and bold colour, while the dark grey shading behind the flowers adds depth and contrast.

Neo-trad Botanical Ribs Lotus Flower Bud Butterfly Swirl Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You are knee-deep in the pond behind the granary when the first cut stem bends in your hand, and the water runs warm and thick over your ankles like soup left too long on the fire. Your mother said to be quick. The priests want lotus for the morning offering, and every bloom must come off before the sun climbs far enough to make it gape, because an open flower that has been handled bruises and the temple will send it back.

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Above you the pond is a sheet of green pads, and the blossoms stand on their long stems like lamps someone has forgotten to snuff. The pale pink ones are closed tight. The yellow-centred ones have already spread their petals to the light, and their gold hearts are heavy with seed. Dragonflies stitch the air. Something small and blue keeps landing on your wrist and lifting off again, as if it is checking whether you are part of the pond too.

Old Hetep, who has tended these pools since before your mother was born, watches from the bank with his arms folded. He says the flower you cut is the one that rises to the god, and the one you leave behind is the one that keeps the pond alive. You have never understood what he means, so you are surprised when your hand stops above a single bud, pink and tight at the top of its stalk, and will not close on it.

You cut the widest bloom instead and lay it in the basket with the others. Then you wade back out, reach past the mud to the bud you left, and bend its stem so it leans toward the morning. Hetep grunts. Your mother will count the flowers when you come home, and she will find one short.