Black tribal-style owl design with large round eyes, perched on a ringed branch that ends in spiral curls.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Tribal owl design perched on a branch

Black and grey · Flash

A solid black owl with a wide head, large round eyes and curved ear tufts sits on a branch. The linework is bold and mostly tapered, with the wings and tail formed from sweeping curved strokes. The image is black on a plain white background, with no shading or colour.

Owl Branch Swirl Spiral Tribal

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Tomas,

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The owl came back to the north tower the week after you left, and I have decided it is no longer a bird I can ignore. It sits on the broken lintel above the old postern gate, where the ivy has pulled the mortar loose, and it watches the road with those two round eyes as if it were counting the carts. Mrs Pryce says it is the same owl that took the last of the Hallam hens, but she says that about everything with feathers.

I climbed up on Tuesday with a lantern and a bag of mutton fat, meaning to find its nest. There is no nest. There is only a branch, grown through a gap in the stonework from the elder that has been trying to take the wall for a hundred years, and along it the spirals of old iron rings have rusted into the bark so that the branch looks banded like a wasp's waist. The owl did not move while I climbed. It only turned its head further than an owl should, and I understood at last why the steward kept the postern shut.

I have left the gate unlatched. Come before the frost, if you can, and bring the good ink for the ledger. I want you to see what it does when the lantern goes out, and I want you to tell me whether I am a fool for thinking it is waiting for the cart to come home.

Yours, Agnes