Black and grey drawing of two feathers, one solid black and one sketched in fine grey lines, on a plain white background.

Two feathers tattoo design

Black and grey · Flash

The image shows two feathers drawn in a vertical, slightly curved arrangement, with the upper feather filled in solid black and the lower feather rendered in pale grey sketch lines. The solid black feather has fine white highlight lines along its shaft, while the lower feather uses loose, hatched strokes and a soft grey wash. The design sits on a plain white background with no body part or skin visible.

Feather Quill

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Sit closer, the lot of you, and mind the nettles. No, Ada, the black one stays in the box. You want to know why nobody crosses the stile after dark? Then hush, and I'll tell it the way my gran told it to me, sat on this same stump with the mist coming off the mere.

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There was a rook called Sorrel-Eye who roosted in the big oak above Tanner's Dyke. Every dusk she flew to the church tower and counted the lamps in the cottages below. Eleven she'd count, and a twelfth window kept dark, because the lad who trimmed that wick had gone off to the war with nothing but a tin whistle and a promise. Each time she came back she shed a feather on the tower leads, black as a burnt hymn book, and each time the lad's mother climbed up and swept them into her apron.

One spring a wood pigeon came down the valley with a pale grey feather snagged in her wing, soft as the fog itself. She settled on the same tower and the two of them argued until the bells rang midnight. The rook said dark was only honest. The pigeon said dark was just the light that hadn't got there yet.

In the morning the twelfth window was lit. Nobody saw who climbed up to do it, and nobody saw the birds go. There was only a black feather and a grey one laid crossed on the sill, and the lad's mother, who never could read a word, knew exactly what they said. Now go home, all of you, before the mere gets its hands on your shoes.