Neo-traditional tattoo on a thigh showing a red rose with a black Deathly Hallows symbol and a grey banner reading until the very end.

Red rose with Deathly Hallows on a thigh

Neo-trad · Thigh · Mixed · Photo

A large red rose with green leaves sits at the centre, with a black outlined triangle, circle and vertical line symbol over the bloom. A grey shaded banner arcs across the top of the design, carrying the words until the very end in black script. Bold black outlines and smooth red shading give a classic finish against pale skin.

Neo-trad Traditional Thigh Rose Deathly hallows Triangle Banner Script Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ines,

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The rose came up on the third day of the dark cycle, which I know you will say is typical, because nothing in the north glasshouse has bloomed since the grandmother stock died. I found it pushing through the gravel beside the cistern drain, red as a warning light, with leaves the green of old bottle glass. Tobias wanted to pull it for the compost, but I made him wait until the petals opened properly.

Under the drain grate I found a tile. Someone scratched a triangle into it long before the dome was sealed, a circle set inside the triangle, and a single straight line running down through the circle like a pin through a moth. Beneath that, in letters worn nearly smooth, were the words UNTIL THE VERY END. Tobias thinks it's a survey mark. I think it's a promise somebody made to a plant, which is more or less what we are all doing down here.

I have been thinking about the old seed ledgers, the ones Mother kept by hand because she never trusted the archive. She wrote that a rose will outlive its gardener if the gardener is careless enough to let it. So I have stopped watering the bed by the airlock and given the water to this one instead.

I am sending you a cutting in the padded tube with this letter. Don't plant it in the station soil. Put it in a jar on the sill, where the light comes through the window at noon, and let it root in water first. If it takes, you will have the only red thing in the whole of Haven Ring. If it doesn't, at least you will know I tried.

Love, Maren