Black ink tattoo of a smiling sun with a face and spiky rays on the side of a ribcage, with a white garment falling beside it.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Sun with face on the ribs

Traditional · Ribs · Black and grey · Photo

A black ink tattoo of a sun with a human-like face sits on the side of the ribs. Bold outlines form the face and a ring of pointed rays, with small dots scattered around the outer edge. The design is in black ink on a bare torso, shown against a white fabric and a soft-focus background.

Traditional Ribs Sun Face Ray Dot

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The mist had sat on Sorrow Gap for three days, and by the fourth my brother Tobias had stopped pretending he knew the way. I walked behind the mule with the salt sacks, counting cairns, because counting was easier than listening to the wind try to find our names.

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At the top of the pass there is a flat slab of grey stone with a sun cut into it, a face in the middle and rays pointing every way at once. Carriers have left it alone for longer than anyone's grandmother can remember. The old tale says a man who loses his road should keep the ridge on his left and walk towards the brightest patch of cloud. Tobias called it nonsense, then laid his palm on the stone like everyone does. Above us the grey thinned, the way milk thins when you stir it with a spoon.

Below, a village showed through a gap in the rock, smoke rising straight from its chimneys. The stone face looked pleased with itself, or so I said. Tobias laughed and told me the sun had been smiling since before the monks built their chapel, and it would keep smiling long after we were dust in some other valley.

We went down with the mule surefooted for once. I kept glancing back at the slab, where the little dots around the rim caught the light like stars that had not yet decided to come out. Tobias never admitted the stone had helped us. He just kept walking, and every so often he looked over his shoulder, as if he were checking that the sun was still watching.