Kara kept a cloth resting on her lap because, every so often, blood mixed with ink would drip down the girl's arm and it was hard to tell where she was supposed to poke next.
The old woman started with the outline of the three interconnected triangle tattoos before filling in the rest.
The outline was hard enough as it was for Irene. Even when they filled it in, Irene asked for a couple of breaks just so she could move around a bit and stretch out her shoulder. Merely moving and air passing against the freshly poked skin felt like she had an open wound exposed to the world. The desire to touch it was hard to resist.
However, even when Kara was done filling in the tattoo, there was still much to go over just in case there were blank patches that would make the prayer and the symbol not protect her. It was meant to be a flawless, unbroken shape to ensure that it worked.
