Black flash design of a flaming sun ring around a pentagram in a circle, with the Latin words Non timebo mala arched across the top.

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Sun and pentagram with Latin text

Black and grey · Flash

A black design showing a pentagram enclosed in a circle, surrounded by a ring of wavy, flame-like rays that form a sun shape. The Latin phrase Non timebo mala is set in an arc above the motif. The image uses solid black ink on a white background, with bold, even linework and no shading or colour.

Sun Pentagram Flame Circle Latin text

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

By the third night the snow had buried the bottom step of the porch, and the taproom lamp had burned down to a bead you could pinch between finger and thumb. You stand at the bar with the ledger open, counting rooms you will not be able to let. No one has climbed the Hollin road since Tuesday. Above the door the iron plate still watches you: a black sun with its tongues of flame and a star caught inside its ring, and beneath it the words your grandfather cut, Non timebo mala, though he never once explained them to anyone who asked.

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The latch lifts a little after ten. A man stands in the doorway with snow to his knees and a lurcher that refuses to cross the sill. He asks for a bed in a voice worn raw by wind, and you tell him the room under the eaves is cold as a bell. He says that will do, and he pays in coins older than the inn's roof. He does not sit by the fire. He keeps his eyes on the plate above the door the whole time he signs the book.

At midnight the dog starts scratching at the foot of the stair, and when you go up with the candle the frost on the landing window has melted away in the shape of that same sun, its rays running down the glass as if someone had breathed on it from outside. The room under the eaves is empty. His boots stand neat by the hearth, dry as biscuits, and the bed has not been slept in. The lurcher lies across the threshold and will not be moved.

At first light the road is clear down to the valley, and the ledger shows one new entry in your own handwriting, dated last Tuesday. You take the chalk from the drawer and trace the rays on the inside of the door, one by one, the way your grandfather did. Outside, the wind drops. You are not afraid, and that is the strangest part.