Her fingers were cool against his skin — from the beer bottle, he imagined. It didn't bother him.
"The section there is about the Sycorax," he explained, raising his own hand so that he could outline the designs as he described them. "The storm, here — you can see the swirl there for the clouds — see how angry it looks? And then the crash," he continued, moving to another pattern with a series of hatched lines. "In the mountains. Then this line here is for the journey afterwards. The wandering," he said, letting his fingertip run down towards his abs along the trajectory of a zig-zag line. There were dots placed regularly along either side of it, which represented something, too — all of the lives they'd lost along the way. Alfred decided he'd keep that part to himself, unless she asked.
Just below the top of his rib cage the jagged line smoothed into a curve and started back up in a straight, fluted sort of line. "This is when we found the tribe — this swooping symbol at the bottom here is like a harbor. Not a harbor, I mean — it doesn't have anything to do with sailing," he said, shaking his head at the limitations of his own metaphors. "Like a — what's the word? A haven."
There was another vertical section next to that, which Alfred waved his hand over generally but didn't trace through each detail of. "And this section is about the village — plenty of food, and shelter, and the way they'd catch the rainwater. It's, uh — where you come from is a big part of your story, for them," he explained. "So stuff like this goes into everyone's tattoos. Because they're meant to tell stories, you know — the whole story of your life. If I'd been born there, this bit about the Sycorax would be about my family and how I was born, and what the stars were like that night," he explained. "And I didn't have all of that when I decided to get the tattoos, so... The story of how we all fell out of the sky and found them took its place."
MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER
"The section there is about the Sycorax," he explained, raising his own hand so that he could outline the designs as he described them. "The storm, here — you can see the swirl there for the clouds — see how angry it looks? And then the crash," he continued, moving to another pattern with a series of hatched lines. "In the mountains. Then this line here is for the journey afterwards. The wandering," he said, letting his fingertip run down towards his abs along the trajectory of a zig-zag line. There were dots placed regularly along either side of it, which represented something, too — all of the lives they'd lost along the way. Alfred decided he'd keep that part to himself, unless she asked.
Just below the top of his rib cage the jagged line smoothed into a curve and started back up in a straight, fluted sort of line. "This is when we found the tribe — this swooping symbol at the bottom here is like a harbor. Not a harbor, I mean — it doesn't have anything to do with sailing," he said, shaking his head at the limitations of his own metaphors. "Like a — what's the word? A haven."
There was another vertical section next to that, which Alfred waved his hand over generally but didn't trace through each detail of. "And this section is about the village — plenty of food, and shelter, and the way they'd catch the rainwater. It's, uh — where you come from is a big part of your story, for them," he explained. "So stuff like this goes into everyone's tattoos. Because they're meant to tell stories, you know — the whole story of your life. If I'd been born there, this bit about the Sycorax would be about my family and how I was born, and what the stars were like that night," he explained. "And I didn't have all of that when I decided to get the tattoos, so... The story of how we all fell out of the sky and found them took its place."
MJ made the most Alfredy of sets and then two years later she made it EVEN BETTER