Houndstooth swayed with her rolling gait as she began to trot. He rubbed a loving hand over her leathery, hairless, blue-black flank, feeling the muscles shifting under the skin. Ruby was sleeker than most hippos, but not by much. Though her livestock cousins had been bred for marbling, her sub-Saharan ancestors carried little excess fat. Their rotund shape belied merciless speed and agility, and Ruby was the apex of those ancient ideals: bred for maneuverability, fearlessness, and above all, stealth. She was dangerous in the water: no gulls dared to plague the marshes she wallowed in, and if one was so foolish as to try to rest on her back, it would quickly be reduced to a cautionary tale for other gulls to tell their children.

“Eight thousand dollars, Ruby. We’ll be able to buy our own little patch of marshland, maybe get you a bull.” Ruby huffed, her nostrils—set squarely on top of her nearly rectangular snout—flaring with impatience. Her round ears didn’t turn toward the sound of his voice, but they flapped irritably. Houndstooth chuckled. “Of course I’m joking. You’re past breeding age anyway, Ruby-roo.”

It was another thirty minutes to the marshside tavern where Houndstooth had a room. It would have been forty by horseback, but Ruby’s trot was quicker than a horse’s, even with her frequent detours to dip back into the river. Houndstooth knew when he’d picked her out that she’d grow up to be more temperamental than a slower hop would have been, but her agility had made her spirited temperament worthwhile.

She’d saved his life enough times that he figured she’d earned the right to her opinions.

When they got back to the tavern, Houndstooth unlatched the kneeling saddle and the saddlebags from Ruby’s harness and set her loose in the marsh. “I’ll see you in the morning, Ruby. We’ll head out around dawn, alright?” She waited, already half-submerged in the water, for him to rub her snout. Her ears twitched back and forth, impatient, and she blew a bubble at him. He laughed, earning a long, slow blink of her slanting, hooded eyes. “Okay, alright, I know. You’ve got places to be, grass to eat.” Houndstooth crouched and put a hand on either side of her broad snout.

“You’re my girl, Ruby-roo,” he cooed, rubbing her whiskers. “And you’re the best gull-damned hippo there is.”

With that, Ruby sank into the water and was gone.

* * *