Two small black fine line cross tattoos on the inner wrists, one on a raised hand and one on an arm wearing blue beaded bracelets, in bright sunlight.

Small cross tattoos on two wrists

Fine line · Other · Black and grey · Photo

Two small, simple cross tattoos sit on the inner wrists, one on a palm-up hand and one on a raised arm. The crosses have thin, even black linework with no shading. The photograph is taken in strong sunlight inside a vehicle, with blue beaded and silver charm bracelets visible beside the tattoos.

Fine line Other Cross Wrist Bracelet

Find an artist for this

Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The toll-keeper of Ardenmoor hands you the needle before the bell has finished ringing, and the queue at the Saltgate stretches back past the tanners' sheds. The ink is soot and vinegar in a horn cup. Pilgrims hold out their wrists, palms up, because the crossing wardens read the inside of the wrist first, and a mark there is seen before a face. Your task is thin lines only. The old warden said a heavy hand makes a cross look like a sword, and swords have no business on the bridge.

Keep reading

By noon your fingers ache. A girl from the salt barges holds out her arm with a blue bead bracelet knotted above the wrist and asks whether the cross will hold through a river crossing. You tell her the ink is older than the bridge and the bridge is older than the river, which is nonsense, but she laughs and the line you draw stays steady. Each cross takes the length of a breath: four strokes, never shaded, because shading is for people who mean to stay.

At dusk the warden's boy runs up with word that the rain has turned and the river is rising, and everyone is to be sent over at once. Nobody will check the lines in the dark; they only need to see a mark. You sit on the bridge steps and look at your own wrist, pale in the lamplight. You have never drawn your own. The old warden's rule was that the marker crosses last. You dip the needle, hold your arm the way you have held a hundred others, and draw the short upright and then the bar.

When the last barge slides under the arch, you lift your wrist to the lantern, and the warden nods without looking up. Below, the water takes the light and breaks it into pieces that never settle. You feel your pulse beat against the small black cross, and you step aside to let the warden wave you through.