Colour tattoo of a sword wrapped in red roses and green vines, with a grey triforce above it, on a person's upper back near the shoulder.

Sword, roses and triforce on a shoulder

Traditional · Shoulder · Mixed · Photo

A long sword with a patterned hilt and blade runs vertically through the centre of the design, with three red roses and green leaves wound around it. Above the blade, a grey triforce emblem is shaded with soft tonal greys and a few darker outlines. The sword and flowers use bold colour with clear black outlines, and the design is framed against pale skin with a plain white top at the edge of the frame.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Mind the loose stone, love, it's the one that rocks. Everyone in Harrow Dale knows you don't walk the blade path after dark, not since the vines came up through the chalk. My gran said the sword was driven into the hill by a man who wanted the valley to stay green, and the roses were his promise, three of them, one for each family who'd keep it.

Keep reading

Above the hill, three grey triangles are cut into the crag, so worn they look like frost on a window. The shepherds reckon they're the bones of a crown. The February I turned nine, the frost killed every bush in the dale except those three roses, which stayed red as a cut. My brother Tom said that was proof, and dared me to climb up and pull the hilt free.

I didn't go, not then. Tom did, at seventeen. He came down with his palm laced with thorns and no sword at all, only a rose clenched in his fist. He said the blade had felt like a hand letting go. He never said whose hand. He left for the mill in Ashby that spring and didn't set foot in Harrow for thirty years, and the roses never forgave him for it.

So I'm the one who keeps the vines in check now, snipping the green ones back so the red can breathe. Tomorrow you can help. Hold the basket and don't touch the hilt. When a petal drops onto the stone, pick it up and keep it in your pocket. That's how you know the valley still owes us a favour.

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