Black line drawing of two facing profiles, one a horned figure and one a woman with her hair up, leaning towards a red rose, shown as a flash design with no body placement.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Two profiles leaning towards a red rose

Fine line · Mixed · Flash

A black line drawing shows two facing profiles, one a horned figure with a long snout and the other a woman with hair gathered on top, leaning in towards a single red rose. The linework is bold, flowing and continuous, with little shading, and the red rose and a small red drop below it are the only colour. The composition is centred on the rose, with the two profiles mirrored on either side on a plain white background.

Fine line Profile Rose Woman Hand Drop Line art

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Marit reached the top of Scarrow Pass with the first snow behind her and her father's salt sack gone soft on her shoulder. The keeper's house stood alone at the crest, and in its yard one rose bush bled red against the grey stone, the only colour for three days' walk in any direction.

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The keeper did not come to the door. He spoke through the shutter, his voice like a cart rolling over shingle. He would give her a bed against the storm, he said, but she was to leave the rose alone. Marit lay awake listening to the wind and turning the warning over, and at dawn she went out and pressed her thumb against one velvet petal, only to learn whether it was real.

It was real. The petal came away, and a bead of red welled up on her skin and would not wipe clean. When she confessed, the keeper came out into the yard for the first time, stooping under the lintel, and she saw how his long hands shook as he took her wrist. He did not scold her. He asked her to sit on the step while he bound the cut with linen, and she did, and for an hour neither of them spoke.

Spring came down the pass in a rush of meltwater. Marit left with the salt unsold and a clean bandage on her thumb. Years later she sent a letter up the mountain with a carter, one line only: the rose has not dropped its last petal, and the drop below it has not dried, and I have not wanted it to.