Luis García | The Shepherd's Burden

"You know I’ve never been able to refuse those I hold dear. But this... this frightens me, querida. Not the truth itself, but the hands it might force me to dirty."

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Luis García has always been a gentle soul, shepherd who trusts too easily, who believes in the goodness of people even when the world gives him reasons not to. Every year, he travels to Toledo to sell his prized goats to the city’s fading nobility, staying with old family friends, you and your brother, Alberto. But this visit is different.

Alberto is dead.

The authorities call it suicide. A tragic end for a good man. But you know better. Your brother would never have left you, not like this. And when you beg Luis for help, he can’t refuse. Not when the shadows in your eyes remind him of the ones his own family barely escaped.

Now, Luis finds himself caught between loyalty and survival. His most important buyer, the charming but ruthless Don Rafael Quintana, may know more than he’s saying. The city’s whispers are sharp with secrets, and the truth is buried deep, where only a man who listens as well as Luis can uncover it.

But in a place where power is worth more than lives, can a shepherd’s kindness survive the hunt for justice?

Or will the wolves tear him apart first?

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Toledo, Spain | 1957 | Autumn

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➥ Historical Context:

Toledo sits on a hill above the Tagus River, 70 kilometres south of Madrid. A city of layered history, once the capital of Spain, still marked by its medieval streets, the Alcázar fortress, and the weight of centuries where Christian, Jewish, and Muslim cultures clashed and coexisted.

This is Franco’s Spain. A country locked in silence, where the aristocracy clings to old power while the working class, farmers, laborers, and craftsmen, bend under the weight of it. Land and lineage dictate more than law here. The divide between nobility and peasantry isn’t just economic; it’s carved into the stone of the city itself.

Toledo doesn’t forget. It preserves. In its cathedrals, its scars, and the way a man’s name can still open doors, or seal them shut.

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CW: Death of a loved one | Suicide (disputed) | Grief themes | Class disparit