Black and grey tattoo of two orcas meeting nose to nose to form a heart shape on the upper arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two orcas forming a heart on an upper arm

Upper arm · Black and grey · Photo

Two orcas face each other, their black bodies and dark fins curving together to outline a heart shape. Smooth black shading gives the bodies volume, with pale grey patches on the chins and eye areas. The design is shown in close, straight-on view against plain skin, with the heart's open centre showing the skin tone.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The ferry from Scrabster was forty minutes late, so Ewan had already counted the bridesmaids twice when the first fin broke the water beyond the pier. Nobody at the harbour wedding noticed at first. The photographer did, and swore under her breath, because her tripod was pointed at the cake.

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Ewan had spent eleven summers on the Pentland Firth boats and knew what a pair meant. Two dorsal fins, close together, rising and falling in a slow rhythm like people talking across a table. His gran used to say orcas mated for life, which he had always filed under fishermen's tales told to keep wives calm. Then the second fin turned and the pair came in shallow, so near the slipway that Sorcha's satin shoes were sprayed with seawater.

She laughed, a full, startled laugh, and said they had come to check the paperwork. The celebrant waited with her hands folded. Ewan stood at the rail with the ring box in his jacket, watching two black backs bend towards each other until they touched, then slide apart and curve back together, drawing a heart on the grey water that the wind kept trying to smudge.

When they dived, the ripples spread in two rings that met at a point and held there a moment longer than they should have. Sorcha took his hand and said she supposed that settled it. Ewan said it had settled nothing, because he had not asked her yet. She told him the whales had saved him the trouble, and he did not argue.

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