Colour tattoo of a pink peony set inside a black triangle on the forearm, surrounded by black leaves, grey flowers and dotted linework.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Pink peony in a triangle on a forearm

Botanical · Forearm · Mixed · Photo

A pink peony sits inside a black triangular outline, with black leaves, a pale grey flower and a sprig of dotted leaves extending downwards and upwards from the design. The peony is shaded in soft pinks and reds with a darker centre, while the leaves and triangle are solid black. Dotwork and fine line details form the stems and foliage, set against plain pale skin and a light background.

Botanical Geometric Dotwork Forearm Peony Flower Leaves Triangle Stem Foliage

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Nell,

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The peonies came up in the walled garden at Harrowcombe the week after the frost, which I took as a bad sign until Mr Aske pointed out that they were only doing what they had always done. He has tended the beds since before the roof fell in, and he will not let me dig up the old bulbs, though their roots have worked through the flagstones of the chapel floor. Yesterday he cut a single bloom and carried it up the broken stair to the room where the chancel window used to be, and set it in a jar on the sill, as if someone were still expecting visitors.

I have been sketching the place for the survey. The Ministry wants a plan of what can be saved, and I keep drawing triangles. The gatehouse is one if you squint, the keep's shadow at noon is another, and the window tracery makes three points of a star whenever the light goes low. Aske says the first family cut a crest into the stone in that shape, a pointed thing with a flower held inside it, and nobody remembers why. I told him it was probably a masons' joke.

Last night I climbed the north wall with the lamp. From there you can see the whole estate laid out like cloth, the dotted line of the hedges, the fields gone silver with dew. The peonies were nearly black in the lantern light, and the leaves Aske had cut for the jar looked as though someone had drawn them with a very fine pen. I thought of you, of course, and how you always said I would end up digging in a graveyard.

I am staying through the autumn. Send the good wool socks and the tin of tea, and tell Mum I have not fallen off anything.

Yours, Hester