Black and grey winged cross tattoo across the upper back of a man with short dark hair, photographed from behind.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Winged cross on upper back

Traditional · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A winged cross is tattooed centrally across the upper back, with the cross set vertically and outstretched feathered wings spreading to either side. The linework is dark and defined, with grey shading on the feathers and the cross to give volume. The black and white photograph is framed from behind the subject, with a thin chain visible at the neck.

Traditional Back Cross Wing Feather

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Ines, the wind off the Sable Reach has finally dropped, so my hand is steady enough to write this properly. We found the chapel on the ninth orbit of Saint Ailm, half buried in grey dust. Its doors had rotted away, but the spire still carried a cross, and someone long gone had bolted two curved plates of salvaged hull to its arms so they swept out on either side like feathers.

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Brannoch wanted to strip it for the smelters. I told him a shape like that catches wind, and anything that catches wind can be flown. We spent four days with cutting torches and a borrowed crane, working in suits with the visors fogging every time we breathed. Nobody on the Thessaly believes in angels, but everybody believes in a lift that works, so we rigged the cross under the hull of the old tug and let the solar gusts do the rest.

On the fifth day the tug hit the glare band and the cross tore loose. I watched it through the aft scope, turning slowly over the ice like a dropped coin, until it was only a bright point against the black. Then the point caught the sunrise, tilted its wings, and began to climb.

Brannoch says it was a reflection. I have decided to believe him on weekdays only. Tell Mama the cross is still up there, and that I have stopped praying for it to come down.