Two forearms showing a fine line black outline of the world map on the left arm and a shaded black compass rose with a fleur-de-lis on the right arm.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

World map and compass rose on forearms

Fine line · Forearm · Black and grey · Photo

The left forearm carries a single-line outline of the continents, drawn in thin black ink with no shading. The right forearm shows a detailed compass rose with a fleur-de-lis at the top, its points and inner circle shaded in black and grey with fine hatching. The image is in black and grey and is framed close on the two arms against grass and fabric.

Fine line Geometric Forearm World map Continent Map Compass Compass rose Fleur-de-lis

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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 Tobiah, the Chancellor has sent back the Sea Chart a third time, asking why the western coast of Veldria is drawn so faintly. I told him the line is faint because you drew it faint, with a nib you refused to lift from the paper all the way from the Gulls' Mouth round to Carrow Bay. He said a coast without gaps had not been properly surveyed. I said that was rather the point.

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Your letter came on the Thursday tide, smelling of brine and tar. You wrote that the water off the Saltreach runs so clear a man can see the drowned towns on the bottom, and that you traced their walls in ink as the Heron tacked past. I have pinned it above the lamp. Beside it hangs the compass rose we cut for the Survey Hall, the one with the lily at its north point, because King Aldric's grandfather believed the lily was the only honest direction.

Last night I sat with the rose and the chart spread together and could not make them agree. The needle on the rose kept pointing south, towards the fat blank island you never reached, while my line ran off the edge of the parchment and came back in on the other side, as though the continents were one creature turning over in its sleep. I did not correct it. I traced your coast with one finger, out from the Gulls' Mouth, and it came round to where I had started.

Send word when you reach the blank island. Do not lift the pen.