Black and grey swallow in flight beside purple and grey chrysanthemums and leaves across an upper arm and shoulder.

Swallow and chrysanthemums on an upper arm

Botanical · Upper arm · Mixed · Photo

A black and grey swallow flies down the inner upper arm, with its wings and forked tail rendered in solid black and fine grey shading. Large chrysanthemum heads, one shaded purple and red and the others in grey and black, sit above it on the shoulder and upper arm, with grey leaves trailing between them. The composition wraps around the arm, with the flowers framing the bird.

Botanical Traditional Upper arm Shoulder Swallow Bird Chrysanthemum Flower Leaves

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ilse,

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The chrysanthemums on the lower terraces at Carrow Hall finally opened this week, the purple ones first, as if they had been waiting for the frost to lift. Lord Averil wants all forty heads cut for the autumn feast, and I told him the stems would not survive the cart ride to the hall. He did not listen. He never listens to the gardener, only to the clerk who counts the petals.

The swallows have gone south early this year. Oswin from the stables swore he saw the first flock lift off the mere at dawn, dark as a handful of thrown ink, skimming low over the oak woods toward the coast. I watched one bird break away from the rest and drop over the wall of the kitchen garden, and I thought of you, because you always said swallows were the only honest messengers in Vesterhald, carrying the news without asking a fee for it.

Here is my news. The steward has locked the east gate. He says the oak leaves must be swept from the paths before the harvest court arrives, and that the gardeners are to keep to the terraces. I have not swept them. I have left them where they fall, gold and grey and curling like open hands, and tomorrow I will unlatch the gate myself and let the wind decide where they go.

Come before the first frost. Bring the blue ribbon you promised me. If the bird is still nesting under the lintel when you arrive, do not frighten it off. It has come back to the same stone for six summers, and I think it knows the way home better than any of us.