#richelle i respect you but i humbly say that animals not liking dhampirs is bullshit | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gins-potter · 2 years

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🖊️ + rose + pets! 🥺

Ahhhh thank you so much for sending this one and giving me any opportunity to write about Rose and animals. I'm fairly certain this one was prompted by a convo we were having in the server about how Rose deserves a dog so voila. With a touch of angst because why not?

It wasn’t a good day.

It wasn’t a good day; it was the middle of the semester so the kids were at school, Dimitri had already left for his shift when Rose had woken that morning, and in their place in the empty house stood the ghosts of her past.

Natalie had stared back at her in the bathroom mirror. Victor had watched her, gaze heavy with judgement, while she’d made breakfast. Mason had been waiting outside when she’d left the house. The Dragomirs had lined the driveway while she’d pulled out in her car.

Why you? their stares seemed to say. Why did Lissa save you and not us?

Why did I die while you survived, she could have sworn Mason hissed as she passed.

Even Victor and Natalie. You killed us. You killed us and got away with it.

Dimitri was on shift, Lissa had important meetings all day, Christian was teaching, Sydney and Adrian were away on business, and Rose was running out of options of who she could turn to. Who might be able to help chase away the ghosts and the shadows. She aimed her car towards Eddie and Mia’s place only a few streets away but changed her mind, chucking a left turn without indicating much to the annoyance of the car behind her.

Space was at a premium at Court so it always surprised Rose how much real estate Maria managed to nab for her dog breeding and training business. The shopfront was modest at best, a smallish room big enough for a glorified table masquerading as a front desk for general enquiries. But it opened out onto a massive outdoor space bordered by kennels with plenty of space for the hounds to run around.

Rose parked out front and headed inside, letting herself through the back and outside where she could see Maria working with some of the psi-hounds, training them to take commands from their future masters. She glanced up at Rose, her ancient face seeming to devolve into yet more wrinkles as an expression of faint surprise appeared.

“I wasn’t expecting you today,” she croaked and Rose shrugged, the gesture hardly making her feel like the approaching middle-aged wife and mother that she was. A bit like Yeva, Maria had the ability to make her feel like a teenager all over again.

“I didn’t have a shift or anything else to do today. Figured you might need some help.”

Maria blinked and cocked her head, her face revealing nothing. “Fine,” she said finally, almost sounding impatient now as if Rose were holding her up. “Almost time for the lunchtime feed.”

The familiar movements of hauling out the large bags of kibble were so comfortable that Rose could almost ignore the way Tasha was trailing after her. The psi-hounds growled at her approach as they usually did but quickly got over it when they saw what she beheld. As a dhampir it was always a little harder for her to win over any of the canines but especially the hounds. The dogs, who would be adopted out as pets once they'd finished the basic training Maria offered, were friendlier and she was greeted by lolling tongues and wagging tails when she headed to their kennels.

Rose usually didn’t allow herself to get attached to any of the canines that Maria bred, knowing that they would all go to royals eventually, but there was one Australian Shepherd that she’d involuntarily grown close to, breathing a little sigh of relief every time she turned up and he was still there.

“Hey, boy,” she said, letting herself into his kennel, the last in the row and filling up his bowl.

But he didn’t swoop upon it straight away as all the other canines had, instead regarding her with serious eyes, one a bright dazzling blue, and the other the colour of warm hot chocolate, so Rose flopped onto the warm concrete beside him, reaching out a hand to stroke his soft fur.

Tasha approached the kennel, her gaze cold and accusatory and Rose shut her eyes to block it out, taking a small comfort at the feeling of the shepherd’s head thumping down on her thigh, a feeling she hadn’t felt since her beloved German Shepherd, Zeus, had passed several years earlier. She hadn’t realised how much she’d missed it.

Tasha’s presence lingered outside the kennel and Rose sucked in a deep breath before letting it out again, trying to remember what her therapist had told her to do in these situations.

“Not real, not real, not real,” she murmured under her breath. Tasha was not real. The concrete, warm and hard, was real, the softness of the dog bed beside her was real, the barking of the other canines was real. The shepherd leaning his head on her leg looking for a scratch behind the ears, he was real. The warm puffs of his breath against her skin, that was real. The silky strands of fur between her fingers, they were real.

Rose slowly opened her eyes and Tasha was gone.

In her place, Maria stood, hands on her hips and one eyebrow raised. Rose braced herself to be yelled at for mucking around; it didn’t matter that she came to help out in her time off from work, Maria still thought that she could order her around just the same, but far from annoying her as it would have as a teenager, now it just amused Rose.

But Maria didn’t yell. Instead she just jerked her chin at the dog by Rose’s side. “Keep him if you want,” she grunted in the same no-nonsense way she had when she’d dumped Zeus in her arms nearly a decade before.

Rose’s eyes widened in surprise. “What?”

“He’s a troublemaker who won’t learn. Reminds me of you,” she added with a scowl. “No one will want him and you need a dog, yes? Keep him.”

Rose blinked and glanced down at the dog, who was still just a puppy, butt already wiggling with excitement. A slow smile started to unfurl across her face as she picked the puppy up and hoped that Dimitri wouldn’t mind the surprise when he got home.

#1k follower celebration #mywriting #answered #vampire academy #rose hathaway #richelle i respect you but i humbly say that animals not liking dhampirs is bullshit

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