Colour realism tattoo of red lilies with green stems and two blue butterflies, placed on the upper back near the shoulder blade.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Red lilies and blue butterflies on a back

Botanical · Back · Colour · Photo

The tattoo shows several red lilies with speckled petals, one still in bud, and green stems and leaves, with two blue butterflies in the upper left. The petals are shaded with soft gradients and fine speckling, and the butterflies have detailed blue wing patterns. The flowers cluster diagonally across the upper back with the butterflies above them, against plain skin.

Botanical Realism Back Lily Flower Butterfly Leaves Stem

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mule stops at the last scree slope below Harrow Col and refuses to take another step, so you climb the final stretch alone with the reins looped over your wrist. The wind comes up from the hollow carrying a smell you do not expect this high, sweet and heavy, like pepper and bruised stems. Your sister told you the tiger lilies only grew on the north side of the pass, where spray from the falls keeps the ground wet all summer. You never trusted her directions. You have always trusted her flowers.

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Halfway down the gully you find them, a cluster of orange-red heads bent over the rock, their petals speckled dark as if someone flicked ink across them. One stem still holds a bud closed tight as a fist. Two butterflies lift from the heather as you pass, blue as a gas flame, and settle on your sleeve as though they have been waiting for a passenger. You crouch and count the spots on the nearest petal. Nineteen. You look again and there are twenty.

The letter from the notary in Vell is still folded in your coat, the one saying the valley farm was sold while you were away at the autumn fair. You had meant to read it again at the top of the pass and decide whether to turn back. Instead you cut the closed bud with your thumbnail, wrap it in wet moss, and tuck it into the pannier beside the salt. Let it open at the lowland farm, where your sister will be waiting with the kettle on and the good cups out.

By the time the path drops into the pines the butterflies have gone ahead, two blue specks rising and falling over the switchbacks. When you look back from the first bend, the lilies are still there on the rock, a little brighter than the stone, leaning towards the sun you have just walked out of. You keep walking. The mule, for once, does not object.