Fine line black tattoo of two crossed botanical sprigs on the upper arm, shown against a black and white patterned top and a grey wall.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two botanical sprigs on upper arm

Fine line · Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

A small tattoo of two thin sprigs crossing each other, with tiny bud-like flowers along each stem. The linework is fine and even in black ink, with no shading or colour. The tattoo sits near the centre of the upper arm against a pale skin tone, with a patterned top and plain grey wall in the background.

Fine line Botanical Upper arm Sprig Stem Bud Flower Plant

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Margit had the cart half unloaded before the rain came, and she was still counting jars of dried stems when the boy from the chapel steps ran up the lane with his cap in his hands. Her brother had sent him. The bees had swarmed twice that week, the old hives were full of nothing but wax, and would she come and say what the matter was, since everyone knew she kept the lavender seed and the lavender knew her.

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She went up with her satchel and a bundle of two sprigs she had cut that morning, one from the south bed and one from the wall, because she always carried a pair when she was called out. Her grandmother had said a single stem could be talked past, but two that crossed would catch the eye, like a pair of neighbours who had been arguing and would not look at each other. At the hive she held them up against the sky, and the bees came down the stems in a slow dark line and went into the lower box as if they had been waiting for an invitation.

The brother stood with his arms folded. "That's all it was?"

"That's all it ever is," Margit said, tying the stems to the hive gate with a strip of linen. "They want somewhere that smells like home. You gave them a box and no reason to stay in it."

The rain came in properly then, and they stood under the eaves with the hive humming beside them. He asked what he owed her. She said a jar of honey for the children and the sprigs left where they were, and she hung her satchel on the hook by the gate on purpose, so that she would have to walk back up in the morning and see whether the bees had stayed.