Forearm tattoo of three owls perched on a branching tree, each owl with a coloured circular medallion holding a simple figure, in black and grey shading with colour accents.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Three owls on a branch down a forearm

Forearm · Mixed · Photo

Three owls sit on a stylised branch that winds down the forearm, with leaves along the twigs. The owls and branches are shaded in black and grey, while each owl's central disc holds a flat symbol in green, blue or orange. The design runs vertically from the wrist towards the elbow, with the lowest owl sitting closest to the wrist.

Forearm Owl Branch Tree Leaves Medallion Figure House Star

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Right, come in close, the lot of you, and mind the lamp, it's the only warm thing left in this barn. Old Ferrier's ash tree stood at the top of the lower field, and on it sat three owls in the winter of the big frost. The eldest kept a hollow in the trunk with a roof of moss over it, and she had never once let a draught in. Beneath her sat the middle owl, who carried a small grey owlet on her back the whole length of January and would not set it down, not even to eat.

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The youngest sat nearest the ground, where the snow drifts reached the branch and the mice ran under the crust. He had no hollow and no child, only a star he'd found frozen in the puddle by the gate, and he kept it pinned to his chest. Every night he swept down to the barn and came back with a mouse, and every night the eldest told him the same thing: you'll wear that star thin, boy, polishing it with your feathers like that.

Then the thaw came early, the way it does once in a generation, and the ice let go of the lower branch. The youngest tumbled into the drift, and the two above him sat very still and did not call, because owls don't call for help. The middle one lowered a wing, the owlet climbed down her feathers like a rope, and the eldest pulled the moss off her own roof and let it fall to cushion him.

When the snow went that spring, all three were still on the branch, and the star shone a little brighter than before. Now drink up, and off to bed. If you hear tapping on the shutter tonight, you let it in.