Ferret; Phase One - Escape Artist

‘Hey, Jieying? Which is yours?’ Koda asked, leaning over the other man’s shoulder to read the paper in his hand. Jade reached behind him and batted Koda in the face with the page, scoffing.

‘Nosy. I sent you the email, just read that,’ He mumbled, scouring the page himself. Ah.

‘…. You printed the wrong pages, didn’t you?’ Koda snickered lightly, dodging the next bashing of paper from the huffing man. ‘You really did. Wow. Let me get the email up.’

Jade nodded silently, crumpling up the papers and throwing them into the bin at the side of the walkway. Today was a busy day - the pair of them were off on the hunt to find Jade’s new Loshenka for a ‘makeover event’ - he was assigned a horse, and he in turn would train it and eventually adopt it. After finding the email and scrolling through to the images, it was revealed that they were looking for a ginger stallion with a knotted, messy tail that hung down by his hooves. The stallion had four long white leg markings, one of which swept up into a delicate tobiano marking over his shoulder and up his neck. Little spots of white flecked over his coat in birdcatcher spots, like a desert with a random snowfall.

ID-11078. Listed as an ‘escape artist’ and a ‘thief’. According to the woman that was in charge of giving them little explanations of his traits, he was… more akin to a dragon, than a horse? Weird.

‘So… where is he?’ Koda scoured over the paddock with wide eyes. Jade pointed towards a ginger horse almost instantly, the tall stallion’s eyes as green as the grass, with a mischievous glint visible from beyond the paddock. ‘Ohh. Pretty.’

‘Yep. He’s handsome. A little minx, by the sounds of him - he’ll get along famously with Viper, huh?’ Jade murmured, hands on his hips.

There was a loud crash over the other side of the yard where a blackberry mare was violently refusing to load onto the horse box brought before her. The pair’s attention had been momentarily focused over there, and when they looked back, they could see their stallion was… missing?

‘What- how is that- where did it go?’ Koda spluttered, gesturing to where the horse had been previously standing. ‘He was right there. We’d have heard if he’d gone cantering off; he’s not there.’

Before Koda had time to finish, Jade had already leant down to slip between the rope of the electric fence, wandering along the edge with eyes flicking about to find the stallion once more. The sly creature was at the edge of the paddock, lifting one hoof tentatively as if to test the electricity of the fence. It zapped him and he jumped back slightly, long ears flattened to his head in a comically irritated expression, but he seemed to recover quickly - he was returning for round two.

Round two, it seemed, was not to see if it was electrified - it was instead to poke his front hoof through the wire, sliding his head underneath it and elegantly trotting off. As we got closer, we could hear it zapping him lightly, but he made no move to get away any faster than we could. As he swung his head and began to trot away, Jade grabbed my arm and pointed at him.

‘Hey, look there. Seems like he’s done this already; someone’s evidently tied him up, but he escaped from that, too,’ Jade was correct - hooked over the stallion’s ear was a brown rope halter, dangling a leadrope at his hooves. The end of the lead was a knot, seemingly tied with some pink baling twine - this horse had not only escaped this field, but also his previous tying point, and the halter itself.

‘Hah. Well. Have fun with him,’ Koda patted Jade on the shoulder and turned as if to walk away. Jade grasped his elbow and spun him round again with a soft glare.

‘Quit it. You’ve already agreed to share the suffering,’ Jade huffed, one hand on his hip to watch the horse nibbling on the grass. Well, you know what they say: the grass is apparently always greener on the other side.

‘Hmph. Fine,’ Koda mumbled, nodding and resting his head on Jade’s shoulder. ‘He’s cute, at least.’

‘That he is,’ Jade hummed in agreement, quietly nudging Koda to gesture to move forwards. They walked on towards the stallion, and when they got to the fence line, Jade effortlessly swept through like the threat of the electricity was nothing - Koda, not so much. He hesitated inside, gaze flicking from the fence to Jade - before the taller man put his hand on the fence and winced slightly.

‘Cmon, wuss. Can’t zap you if it’s zapping me first - the battery’s that way.’ He grinned, waving the fence line. Koda chuckled softly and slid through, leaping out of the way just in time for Jade to drop it and shake his hand with an agitated expression. ‘Ouch.’

Jade was about to walk forwards to try and grab the end of the leadrope, before it was Koda’s turn to grab him. Jade was the louder of the two - more disturbing and less patient, easier to irritate. Koda glanced at the green-eyed man before stepping round into the loshenka’s eye-line, smiling  softly as he crouched down with his hand out, apple in tow. The stallion had now flicked the halter of his ear, leaving it strewn about by his hooves, for Jade to snatch. The ginger stepped forwards, then again, sniffing at the apple and taking it in his mouth, chewing it happily. He was surprisingly clean with it, only dropping a couple of bits - evidently used to eating his food quickly, before something else would come and snatch it from him. It was interesting, seeing just how this happy-go-lucky fella seemed to react to everything.

Jade threw the headcollar at Koda, who grabbed it, standing up slowly as the loshenka stallion threw his head around, mildly spooked. He seemed to prefer the food he was eating to the threat of the rope, as he calmed down quite easily. Koda slipped the halter on, knotting it and beginning to lead him round the barn with a quiet temperament. The ginger horse was subtly limping - hiding it, as far as Koda could see, in hopes that they wouldn’t notice. It wasn’t anything major, maybe a swollen leg to cold-hose or a deep-set rock in his hoof to pick out later on. Hopefully, anyway.

They loaded him onto the Pinecone Pony Club trailer with surprising ease, the first time - he walked on without a care in the world, the only worry about getting to the haynet quickly. Five minutes of chatting turned around, and… he was out, stomping down the ramp and eating the grass.

‘You son of a-‘ Koda clamped a hand over Jade’s mouth, both staring in a mix of irritation and awe before wandering off to re-load.

‘Well. He’s a handful, huh?’ Jade murmured, running a hang through his long ombre hair. They’d done up the ramps, closing the front window and locking him up in there with victory. ‘There. He shouldn’t be able to get out until we get home and to his new paddock, now.’