Close-up of a small fine line tattoo of a black cross with red and black scrolls and dots on the outer ankle, in a Fine line style.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small cross and scroll on an ankle

Fine line · Ankle · Mixed · Photo

A small black cross stands upright, with a curling scroll flourish and a few red dots sweeping to its left and below. The linework is thin and even, with the black outline and the red accents sitting neatly against the skin. The tattoo is centred in a close photo of the ankle against a pale, blurred background.

Fine line Ankle Cross Scroll Flourish Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Tomas Reid had mended nets on the quay at Strathness for thirty years, and he knew the sound a sound boat made coming over the bar. The Morag Rose was late. Her skipper, Davie Ruthven, was a man who came in early or not at all, and the gulls had gone quiet above the harbour wall, which Tomas did not like.

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His daughter Ellen came down with a flask and a question she did not ask. He kept his hands moving on the twine, a sheet bend and then a half hitch, and told her the tide was making. She stood beside him watching the gap between the piers. The water had gone the colour of pewter, and a single fleck of red buoy paint bobbed out past the marker and back again, as if it could not decide.

At dusk the Morag Rose came in on the flood, slow, her wheelhouse dark and a lamp hung from the mast. Davie had nailed a small wooden cross cut from a broken fish box above the wheel, and along the bow, where the spray had worn the paint, he had dabbed fresh red oxide in a trail of drops. Tomas saw the cross first, then the spots running back along the hull like rowan berries on a wet branch.

Davie stepped onto the quay without a word about the lost hour. He shook Tomas by the hand and asked only for a coil of the heavy twine. Tomas handed it over, then sat back down on his upturned creel and took up his needle again, because a net would not mend itself and the tide would turn in the morning whether anyone was ready or not.