Black and grey realism back tattoo of a woman in an ornate headdress, with lotus flowers, blossoms, a sun and musical notes around her.

Woman in ornate headdress and lotus flowers across a back

Realism · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A full back piece shows a woman with an ornate headdress and flowers in her hair, shaded in soft greys with fine detail in her face and jewellery. Large lotus flowers sit across the lower back, with a sun or moon shape, cherry blossom sprigs and musical notes or script at the upper left. The composition fills the whole back with smooth gradients and high contrast, and the ink is entirely black and grey.

Realism Botanical Back Woman Headdress Lotus Flower Blossom Sun Moon Musical note Script

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The snow came over the high road on the third day of the feast, and by the fourth the Hollin Inn was an island of lamplight with nothing beyond its shutters but white. Old Maud Harker counted her barrels twice and her candles once, and then the knock came. A woman stood on the step with snow on her shoulders and a case of black lacquer tied with red cord. Her headdress was a silver crescent hung with little bells, and it chimed when she bowed.

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She asked for a room facing east and a bowl of water. Maud gave her the room over the kitchen, where the chimney kept it warm, and the bowl. In the night the guests heard singing through the floorboards, a thin, high voice that rose and fell like a reed bending in wind. In the morning the drifts had gone soft and blue, and the road was clear as far as the mill, though no one had ploughed it.

The woman was gone. Her bowl sat on the sill, full of petals that were not from any tree in the valley. Pale cherry blossom, Maud thought, and a single lotus leaf floating on the water, though it was January. The case lay open on the bed with nothing in it but a folded sheet of music, its notes written in a hand that ran like falling petals.

Maud did not let the room that winter. In spring, when the frost left the yard, a shallow pool opened beside the well where none had been, and in the middle of it a lotus bloomed, grey-white and cold to touch. Maud left it be. Every full moon she set a bowl of water on the sill and hummed a little under her breath, and the snow never came back to Hollin before the feast.