Fine line black tattoo of three flying birds above the word Warrior in script, on the inside of a wrist.

Three birds and Warrior on a wrist

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

Three small black bird silhouettes fly above the word Warrior, written in a flowing cursive script. The linework is thin and the ink is solid black with no shading. The tattoo sits on the inside of a wrist against a blurred grey background, with the arm angled diagonally across the frame.

Fine line Lettering Forearm Bird Flying bird Warrior

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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

By the time the lorries stop queuing, you have counted the swallows three times, because counting is the only thing at the Vellmark crossing that never asks for a stamp. Your supervisor, Pascoe, thinks it is a habit you should break before the inspectors notice. You tell him the birds have better papers than most of the drivers.

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The word that carries you through the long shifts is the one your grandmother wrote on the inside of her tin lid, in the looping hand she made you copy until your wrist ached. Warrior, she said, is not a thing you are. It is a thing you keep doing when nobody is watching. You have never told anyone that she said it.

On the third Tuesday of November a man arrives with a folder of papers and a child asleep against his shoulder. His hands shake only when he thinks you are not looking. You check each page twice, slowly, and while you do, three starlings lift off the wire fence behind his car, wheel once over the barrier and settle on the far side, where the gravel turns to the other country's road.

You stamp the folder. Your pen hovers over the box marked remarks, then you write one word in small careful letters, the way your grandmother taught you, and slide the papers back under the glass. Pascoe reads it later and says nothing, which is how you know it was the right word.