Assignment: Criminology Task 2: Write about a tattoo with a secret meaning.
RA: A touch from your soulmate will leave an imprint. (Colour, symbol, name for example)
The entire time she's making the appointment, Penelope isn't sure she's going to go through with it.
Sure, she's done her research, and picked an artist that she likes — Audrey's line work is amazing.
It's not an impulse decision but it is a rebellion, because her father will probably yell when he finds out.
Penelope doesn't care. She's nineteen and she wants a siren on her body — a reminder that she is in control here, that no one gets to tell her what to do. Not that she'll ever tell her father that's what it means.
She needs the reminder after her last relationship went south.
Audrey, her artist, had sketched out a stencil that is the perfect balance of terrifying and beautiful, and Penelope couldn't love it any more than she does.
But she's still not sure she's going to do it.
Not until she's pushing open the door to the shop and stopping at the front desk, smiling at the man who works there.
"I have an appointment with Audrey? Uh, Penelope Clearwater."
The redhead smiles up at her. "Sure, Penelope. Audrey will be just a minute."
And then Penelope is being led back and Audrey is smiling at her gently and asking her if she's sure and Penelope is nodding and laying on her stomach.
Except that when Audrey presses her hands into the stencil to imprint it, she pulls back. "Oh," she says, except that it's more of an awed exhale. "Oh, wow."
"What?" Penelope asks. She doesn't dare twist.
"I've… well, I've never left a colour that bright before."
That's not what Penelope was expecting her to say. Penelope wasn't expecting to get a soul mark from her tattoo artist. She only has three — her parents, and her first boyfriend (though Percy's mark had been vivid, they'd been terrible in a relationship. Definitely a friendship mark). Her mother's handprint is between her shoulders, her father's fingertips on her arms, and Percy's bright blue handprint is on her right palm.
"Can I see?" she asks.
In response, Audrey flips up a mirror, and… wow.
There are bright red smears down her back, surrounding the stencil. Even brighter than Percy's mark on her palm.
"Oh," she says in awe. "Wow. That's… gorgeous."
And it's going to highlight the siren beautifully. The red is strong and vicious, perfectly accenting the siren.
"Uh. Can I sit up?"
Audrey peels the stencil off, leaving just the black marks. "You can now," she says.
Penelope does, and then she shapes her hands into a silhouette of a heart. She's always wanted to try this.
"Can I?" she says, reaching out.
"Oh," Audrey says, getting her intent. She smiles. "Fuck, yeah, that's cute." She lifts her shirt, baring a toned stomach that Penelope is going to dream about, exposing just a sliver of the lower curve of her bra, and Penelope feels her mouth go dry.
She reaches out and carefully lets her hands fall evenly on the warmth of Audrey's skin.
When she pulls them away, there's a pink heart outlined on the left side of Audrey's stomach, tilted at an angle, the brightest pink Penelope has ever left behind. She can't peel her eyes away.
Audrey shifts, and then says, "Well. I am… technically on the clock, and should probably actually ink in that tattoo… but maybe after my shift we could get dinner?"
Penelope grins softly.
"I think I'd like that."
Writing Month/Dragons: 558
Auction: AU: tattoo artist, 55 coins
Romance Awareness: A touch from your soulmate will leave an imprint. (Colour, symbol, name for example)
Fortnightly: Snape: 10. Polyjuice Potion – write about trying to change yourself (in any way)
Amber's Attic: G4. Write a tattoo artist!au (5 bonus points)
Lyric Alley: 9. For we are glorious
Sophie's Shelf: 16. PenelopeAudrey