Black tribal-style design of two fish curving around each other, with solid black bodies, white linework and small diamond cut-outs, shown on a white background.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two interlocking fish in tribal style

Blackwork · Black and grey · Flash

Two stylised fish are shown in a mirrored, interlocking arrangement, one curving up and one curving down. Their bodies and fins are solid black shapes with white cut-out lines, diamond motifs and curled details along the spines. The design is shown flat on a plain white background, with no body part visible.

Blackwork Fish Tribal Diamond pattern Symmetry

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ruth,

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We are four hundred miles past the Azores and the sea has gone the colour of wet slate for three days running. The mate says it is the holding pattern before a blow, and he has been right about every weather thing so far, which is more than I can say for the purser's almanac. Mostly I am bored and the bread keeps going mouldy in the locker. I have been carving to pass the watches. Nothing fancy, just the thing old Tomasz showed me in Lisbon, two fish that chase each other's tails and never quite manage it.

Tomasz swore the pattern came off a chart-maker's stamp from Gdansk, two fish nose to tail, one going up the page and one coming down, so that a sailor who looked at it always had the other to follow. He said it kept the boat from going round in circles when the compass lied. I told him that was tosh, and he gave me the look he saves for the cook's bad onions.

Last night the pair came out clean. I cut the diamonds into the flanks with a bent nail and left white lines where the spines should be, and when I held the board up to the lamp the two fish seemed to be swimming through each other, neither losing. I thought of you and the pier at Whitby, how you never let me win an argument and never let me lose one either.

Tell Mum I am eating properly. I will post this from Bermuda if the wind lets us in.

Love, Dan