Prompt 117~Claddagh-Buried Cosmos-tiaordona

[tiaordona.livejournal.com]

Title: Buried Cosmos
Author: tiaordona
Rating: T for a smidgen of language.
Prompt: Number 117, Claddagh (Gasps...I know what this is! XD)
Fandom: Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life
Disclaimer: Nope, don't own. Rejoice.

Two gentle hands cradle a crowned heart. The golden ring shimmers, a gleam so lovely, sparkling in the harsh fluorescent light that the aged doctor uses to scrutinize the wound on my foot. It is a paradise gem in a sea of angry purple, the bruise that spills from my swollen, misshapen big to, to faint, gossamer traces across my inside ankle, like a delicate spider web. I feel a bitter sickness rise up my throat as I glance at the harm to my foot; I gaze fixatedly on the doctor’s ring instead, feeling its cool caress as he probes about the wound.

Doctor Hardy’s mechanical eye swivels to my own, then to my object of fascination. The menacing eye’s bolts and parts don’t even make a sound…I feel as if I had underestimated the power of the technology.

The gold blurs slightly, the outline going fuzzy as my eyes fill and become heavy. Perhaps the mechanical eye isn’t the only thing I have underestimated…

“Like that, don’t you?” Hardy asks me in his characteristically gruff voice. My eyes dart to his face… a smile ghosts across his hardened features, the corners of his mouth carving wrinkles into his pockmarked cheeks.

My cheeks turn to a ripe pink. “Yes,” I answer rather breathlessly. “I’ve…never seen anything like it.”

He nods and leans back on the musty, three-legged stool. “It’s called a claddagh. It comes from a far-off land,” he tells me, his beady remaining eye clouded as he reflects upon the past, “a lush, green plain, far, far away. It rained a lot there, but when the sun shined, the whole world sparkled with dewy light.” He observes the ring on his finger, contemplating it. “I bought this from a local vendor. It’s a symbol: the hands are friendship, the heart, love, and the crown is loyalty. All those good traits you find in the ones you love…they’re all right here.” The creases on his forehead are smooth, for once, and he looks thoroughly peaceful. But my mind is too far gone for me to notice.

Love…friendship…loyalty. They are three things that can make life, marriage, complete. How I yearned for a person willing to give me these gifts. How I thought I had triumphed, only to be whipped back in the mud by my own husband.

A startled gasp of pain bursts forth from my lips. “Ah!” I yelp.

Hardy quirks his eyebrow, his expression serious once more, plunged back to the unsympathetic reality. “Hmm…just a bruise, I suspect. Nothing seems to be broken. Just bruised.”

The strangled, trembling exhale tumbles forth from my throat. “All right…” I respond, still recovering from the fresh, juicy poke on the wound. Hardy retrieves a bag of ice and begins to firmly wrap it in place with a bandage. I chomp hard on my lip, sinking my teeth into the sensitive skin on it, while my eyes flood with something other than emotion.

“You’ll need to keep this compress on until night. Afterwards, you can take it off, and put it back on in the morning.” He finishes the wrap, securing it with several pins. “I tell you, Missy, you sure are lucky. With a hit like that, I was sure you lodged your toe right up into your foot.” I visibly shudder, and another slightly bitter grin creeps on his gnarled face. “There’s someone waiting for you.” With a hearty swoop, he whisks away the bath curtains that conceal the examination table.

My eyes land on the kitchen table’s bench, and my mouth goes dry. Jet black curls…ice blue eyes…arms crossed over a rumpled shirt…delicate vulnerability, hanging on by a thread…

Marlin sags in relief, gripping the side of the table. “How is she, Hardy?” he breathes, the energy sapped from his usual hardened-edge voice.

Hardy nods. “She’s all right. A little bruised up, but all right.”

Marlin practically melts into a puddle on the ground, but instead, picks himself off the ground and wraps a tentative arm around my waist. The contact spurs a leap from me, my blood running with electricity. He takes no notice as he helps me off the bed, uttering thanks to Hardy. I am too much in shock over what has the potential of happening to even utter a word.

The valley is dark with night, mist hanging lazily over the grass. The blackness is suffocating, making me unconsciously cling to Marlin. But Marlin says nothing. He knows I know.

So say it, Marlin. Just say that you love her.

The warm, yellow light floods my vision as we quickly lope into my home, a sacred refuge from which I had fled. My lip trembles as my husband deposits me on the bed, and takes a hesitant seat next to me. There is something…something present in his ambiance that is a sharp bundle of knives, knives of heartbreak and betrayal and sorrow that sink into my skin.

He rests his hands on his knees, mustering his words to attack. “Jill…why?”

My heart explodes with raw, unnamable emotion. “Just say it, goddamn you!” I tremble with unsurpassed rage. I am tired of heartbreak, tired of sadness. I would raise this farm all on my own. I do not need help from a petty man. I could do this. I could do this. I could do this. I am strong enough, if I could survive this.

“Jill, say what?” he asks, gritting his teeth against his own rage that threatens to consume him.

“Tell me you’re cheating with Celia! Tell me you love her!” I spit acidly, the voice splurging out of my throat sounding foreign to my own ears.

Marlin freezes, the time slipping away as the expression on his face becomes the center of the earth. A fool would stop at the expression. It is a mirror, a portal to all of my own emotions when I had seen them on the fated day when I had discovered of his disloyalty. Through it is pain, heartbreak, rage, rejection, anger, dejection, sorrow… For a second, I almost forgive him; take him down into my arms, where nothing could hurt us again. But I hold strong, and his face becomes blank.

“Jill…no…I…”

“Liar,” I hiss, angry tears welling in my eyes as I curl in protectively around myself.

He just shakes his head, crumpling, but not yet ready to accept defeat. He wants to fight a battle first. And I am fine with that. I don’t need a man. Not now. Not ever.

At this moment, I think back to the claddagh in Hardy’s office. Love, friendship, loyalty…

I wonder if my life can ever contain these things again.