[So. Flamebringer... has been thinking. In part, due to being friends with Till, and seeing the slave brand on his neck every day. In part, due to staring at the barcode on his own wrist lately, lost in thought. A major part of him still belongs to the Scar Market, after all.
And Wolfwood, too, is just like them. But whereas Flamebringer keeps the tattoo brand as a reminder of how far he's come, like every single scar from the guns of Sankta who'd hunted him over the years, Wolfwood... to him, had always seemed like he'd rather be rid of the brand on his back.
(Till, too, but that's for later.)
He's not sure about coverups. For a while, Flamebringer spends time in the tat shop with the door closed and the curtains drawn, sketching away, trying to think of something that could get rid of that nasty brand. Things Wolfwood would like and things Flamebringer thinks of him don't exactly seem to align the way he'd like on the page. To Flamebringer, Wolfwood is stubborn ivy and cigarette smoke, amaryllis and gladiolus, a phoenix rising from the ashes and leaving behind burnt bones only to say "I'm still here, motherfuckers". He spends a long time trying to figure out how to incorporate those feelings into a tattoo. Flowers, of course, are easy. But he's already covered Wolfwood in flowers, so there has to be something else.
...
Flamebringer spends three whole days on this. Countless sketchbook pages, pencils sharpened to the point they're mere stubs, ink staining his fingertips indistinguishable from his nail polish. A smear of graphite on his cheek when he goes to meet Wolfwood next says he only just finished the piece and didn't even have time to look presentable before walking all this way. Wherever Wolfwood is, he's getting a hand placed on his back right where the cult brand is, the sketchbook slid in front of him, open to the page that he's completed the design on.]
Tell me what you think of that.
[Wolfwood is looking at a black and white piece that takes up the entire page. Despite Flamebringer's attempt to avoid the flowers, the amaryllis made it into the design anyway, representative of his strength and determination. The stalks of the amaryllis are interwoven between the vertebrae of a spinal column, a ribcage wrapped around the outside as if one was looking at someone's back through an x-ray. In the end, Flamebringer isn't sure what made him pick a spine, other than the whole "phoenix" thing (and the fact it would be on Wolfwood's back), and the bones are appropriately burnt and charred to give that idea. The top of the design is, luckily, big enough to cover the cult tattoo between the top of the spinal column and the flowers, since that was the whole point of this excerise.
He could've gone smaller, but he didn't want to.
His bangs are fucked up and messy in a way that says "I was pulling on it thirty minutes ago", so clearly something's going on. If Flamebringer were more of an emotional person, he'd say what's on his mind immediately: "I want to tattoo that on you, because you were reincarnated into some fucked-up world that chased you even here." He also could've asked Wolfwood if he wanted that done at all rather than assuming, but turns out, Flamebringer remains horrible at talking to people, even those he has marked interest in.
...
Though, now that he's looking at this, he's thinking he should've coloured in the flowers. Pbffff. Fuck.]
before the monster mash // blanket warning for slavery & human experimentation mentions
And Wolfwood, too, is just like them. But whereas Flamebringer keeps the tattoo brand as a reminder of how far he's come, like every single scar from the guns of Sankta who'd hunted him over the years, Wolfwood... to him, had always seemed like he'd rather be rid of the brand on his back.
(Till, too, but that's for later.)
He's not sure about coverups. For a while, Flamebringer spends time in the tat shop with the door closed and the curtains drawn, sketching away, trying to think of something that could get rid of that nasty brand. Things Wolfwood would like and things Flamebringer thinks of him don't exactly seem to align the way he'd like on the page. To Flamebringer, Wolfwood is stubborn ivy and cigarette smoke, amaryllis and gladiolus, a phoenix rising from the ashes and leaving behind burnt bones only to say "I'm still here, motherfuckers". He spends a long time trying to figure out how to incorporate those feelings into a tattoo. Flowers, of course, are easy. But he's already covered Wolfwood in flowers, so there has to be something else.
...
Flamebringer spends three whole days on this. Countless sketchbook pages, pencils sharpened to the point they're mere stubs, ink staining his fingertips indistinguishable from his nail polish. A smear of graphite on his cheek when he goes to meet Wolfwood next says he only just finished the piece and didn't even have time to look presentable before walking all this way. Wherever Wolfwood is, he's getting a hand placed on his back right where the cult brand is, the sketchbook slid in front of him, open to the page that he's completed the design on.]
Tell me what you think of that.
[Wolfwood is looking at a black and white piece that takes up the entire page. Despite Flamebringer's attempt to avoid the flowers, the amaryllis made it into the design anyway, representative of his strength and determination. The stalks of the amaryllis are interwoven between the vertebrae of a spinal column, a ribcage wrapped around the outside as if one was looking at someone's back through an x-ray. In the end, Flamebringer isn't sure what made him pick a spine, other than the whole "phoenix" thing (and the fact it would be on Wolfwood's back), and the bones are appropriately burnt and charred to give that idea. The top of the design is, luckily, big enough to cover the cult tattoo between the top of the spinal column and the flowers, since that was the whole point of this excerise.
He could've gone smaller, but he didn't want to.
His bangs are fucked up and messy in a way that says "I was pulling on it thirty minutes ago", so clearly something's going on. If Flamebringer were more of an emotional person, he'd say what's on his mind immediately: "I want to tattoo that on you, because you were reincarnated into some fucked-up world that chased you even here." He also could've asked Wolfwood if he wanted that done at all rather than assuming, but turns out, Flamebringer remains horrible at talking to people, even those he has marked interest in.
...
Though, now that he's looking at this, he's thinking he should've coloured in the flowers. Pbffff. Fuck.]