Three solid black butterflies in a diagonal line on the inner wrist and forearm, in a blackwork style.

Three butterflies on a wrist

Blackwork · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

A raised hand shows three black butterflies trailing diagonally down the inner wrist and forearm, the largest near the wrist and the smallest lowest. The wings are filled in solid black with pale highlights and fine detail along the edges and veins. The pale skin and dark navy background give the tattoo strong contrast.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Hush now, Tess, said Nan Pryce, but the girl was not listening, because she was watching three butterflies that had come in off the bay with the fog and settled on the rail of the Marguerite. They were black as tar, with the pale of the sail showing through the edges of their wings, and they had the look of travellers who had been promised a short crossing and had since learned otherwise.

Keep reading

The eldest went first, the way eldest do. She was broad as a man's palm and she flew low over the water, taking the spray on her wings and shaking it off like a dog. The middle one followed, and the two of them were past the breakwater before the smallest noticed that her thread was still caught on the mooring ring. She tugged. She tugged until the ring gave and the thread came free, and by then her sisters were gone into the grey.

Nan Pryce always stopped here and looked at the child until the child asked what happened next. The smallest flew after them for nine days and nine nights, Nan said, across the Ketling Sound and over the drowned church at Ormsby, until she caught them at last on the far side of the Fallow Reef, where the eldest was waiting with her wings folded and her face turned to the land.

They never asked her why she was late, said Nan. They only moved over to make room.

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