This is the Laos Legacy feed. Currently working on generation 3!
Also, you can read the whole story here: https://thelaoslegacy.tumblr.com/
BlueskyFeedCreator.com
Virginia’s head lifts a fraction, eyes narrowing the slightest bit, wary.
“I just wanted to give you a heads-up,” Rowan continues. “She doesn’t really understand boundaries. Or what the word ‘𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘤𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨’ means. I’ll tell her to stay in the main house,” he adds. “If that makes things easier for you.”
Rowan turns away with a sigh, running a hand down his face as if the conversation has wrung out what little energy he had left. He makes it halfway toward the stairs before something shifts in his expression.
He turns back.
“Listen,” he says, “my sister’s coming tomorrow.”
Virginia’s jaw tightens, as if she wants to argue but can’t find the energy for it.
“I was just trying to make sure you didn’t go hungry,” Rowan adds softly.
“I can manage without people making decisions for me.”
“I’m not trying to decide anything for you.” He sighs. “I just noticed there was nothing upstairs. So I figured you might need something to eat.”
He clears his throat. “Do you need anything? Anything at all?”
“No.” Her voice is flat, scraped clean of emotion. “And the food was unnecessary.”
Rowan frowns, confused. “Unnecessary how?”
He sighs quietly. “Looks like I left the office door open,” he says, clicking his tongue for the dog. “Buddy, let’s go.”
Buddy trots to him, but not before glancing back at Virginia as if to make sure she’s still there.
Rowan closes his eyes and exhales. That explains the yelp from earlier. He clears his throat loud enough to warn her.
“Virginia, I’m coming up.”
Rowan reaches the top of the stairs and stops short. Buddy sits glued to Virginia’s side, tail sweeping the floor like he’s adopted her overnight.
Rowan’s voice carries faintly up the stairwell, muffled but unmistakably calling the dog’s name again.
Virginia groans under her breath. “Come on,” she whispers. “He’s gonna come upstairs any second, and I really don’t want him walking into this room. Let’s go.”
Rowan has been circling the clinic for ten minutes calling Buddy’s name, checking under tables, behind feed bags, even in the storage closet where the dog had once tried to nap. Nothing. Finally, as he steps into the hallway, he hears something drifting down from upstairs.
Virginia lets out a weary sigh as she rubs behind the Buddy's ears, him leaning into her hand like he’s known her for years instead of hours.
“Your owner is out there searching for you,” she mutters. “𝘉𝘶𝘥𝘥𝘺. Honestly, who names a dog that? It’s a terrible name.”
Clover chooses that moment to veer off the trail entirely.
Rowan squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s not me, is it?”
He lets her go and do what she wants. Being out here is the only time he stops thinking.
“Yeah, that tracks,” he mutters. “Listening to me is still optional, isn’t it?”
Clover flicks an ear back at him.
Rowan exhales a breath that fogs in the cold air. “You know, one of us is supposed to be in charge,” he tells her.
After his shift at the clinic finally ends, Clover is waiting for him in the paddock, pawing at the snow with an impatience that feels almost personal.
Mounting her is easier these days, but the second he settles, Clover shifts her weight and starts walking before he gives a single command.
Her eyes dart to the groceries again, and she moves before she can talk herself out of it. She grabs the closest bowl, a box of cereal, and a carton of milk, and pours the bare minimum she needs to keep her stomach from curling in hunger.
Then she retreats.
Virginia steps out of the room, and the sight waiting there pulls her up short.
The entire kitchen counter is covered. Someone took the time to unpack everything, to set it out with a calm order that feels almost intimate.
A strange tightness coils in her chest.
He doesn’t. If anything, he perks up, ears forward, a hopeful little wiggle starting in his back legs.
Virginia sighs, exasperated. “Oh, for heaven’s sake...”
The dog waits, patient and bright-eyed, like she’s the best thing he’s seen all week.
She narrows her eyes at him. “No.”
The dog tilts his head.
“No,” she repeats more firmly, pointing at the door. “𝘎𝘰.”
Rowan looks up from the exam table so fast he nearly drops the stethoscope.
“Doc? Is everything okay?”
Rowan forces an easy smile he absolutely does not feel.
“I heard something,” he says lightly. “It’s probably the pipes. This place is ancient. They make… Weird noises.”
When she finally gathers the strength to get up, still groggy and sore, something white catches the corner of her eye. Before her mind even has time to process the shape, her body reacts first.
She yelps.
So it wasn’t a lie. He really is a vet.
The realization loosens something knotted deep in her stomach. She had half expected the kindness of last night to have been a trick or a trap. But the sounds drifting up from below are normal, mundane, proof of a life that has nothing to do with her.
Then she hears it; soft barks, a low meow, and the muffled murmur of someone speaking in a calm voice. Another bark. A drawer sliding open. Metal tools clinking gently together.
It takes her a few seconds for her fogged mind to connect the sounds. The clinic. He told her the clinic was downstairs.
Virginia wakes when the morning is already fully alive, sunlight filtering through the curtains in thin, warm lines that touch her face before she’s ready to be touched at all. For a moment she lies still, suspended in that hazy space between dreaming and remembering.
By the time he’s carrying the grocery bag back toward the ranch, he’s made up his mind.
He’ll call Selene the moment he closes the clinic. Not to dump all this on her, just to get a little guidance. Maybe a few tips on how to help a woman who clearly wants nothing to do with help.
He really needs Selene.
Selene always knows what to do, what to say, how to handle people without making things worse. But Selene has her own life, her own storm going on, and Rowan hates the idea of adding more weight to her plate.