Back view of a woman with a small fine line tattoo of triangles and a circle with rays on her side ribs, beside a panel of alchemy symbols.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Small triangle and circle tattoo on a ribcage

Fine line · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A woman with long, wavy hair is photographed from behind with her torso bare, turned towards bright, backlit foliage. A small black tattoo of triangles and a circle with radiating lines sits on her side, below the arm. The right half of the image is a text panel titled Alchemy Symbols, showing the symbols for fire, water, earth and air.

Fine line Geometric Ribs Triangle Circle Geometric shape Fire Water Earth

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

You are the only one aboard who can still read the old brass. The chart room smells of tallow and wet wool, and the captain has pinned the astrolabe to the bulkhead with a nail because the swell won't let it lie flat. He wants a bearing by noon. You take the instrument down, rub the face with your thumb, and find the sun has slid past the marks the Dutchman scratched there forty years ago.

Keep reading

Four symbols are cut round the rim: a triangle pointing up for fire, one pointing down for water, a downward triangle with a bar through it for earth, and an upward one with a bar for air. Your father taught you them on the quay at Hull, saying the old alchemists believed everything at sea was made of those four, and that a ship was only a way of keeping them from quarrelling. You thought he was being poetic. Now the galley stove has gone cold, the water casks are green, salt has crusted the bread, and the air in the hold is thick enough to chew.

At midnight the small sun you scratched inside the lid of your tin, a circle with rays, catches the lamp. You pour the last of the rum over the compass card to clean it, and the needle swings true for the first time in a week. Fire, water, earth, air, you say aloud, counting on your fingers like a child. The third officer laughs until he sees the needle too.

Noon comes grey. You take the sight through a gap in the cloud, read the sun's height off the arc, and call the figure down the companionway. Nobody cheers. The captain only nods and asks for the tally. You write the bearing in the log and then, beneath it, draw a small circle with eight lines coming out of it, the way your father drew the sun on the back of every letter he never sent.