Navia was only half-listening to Théadan speak to Risho. Once the ship captain had confirmed the whales were the type to put on a show for ships, her eyes were locked on them, waiting on baited breath to see such a spectacle. From what she could tell, the only real interests the whales had were in feeding or lazily swimming along on the surface of the water while others fed. Impatience tugged at her, she was tempted to point out they still weren’t doing anything acrobatic, but Risho had told her to be patient and Théadan was drawing her attention to what the birds were doing. Her dark eyes lifted to the birds, most of them a mixture of gray and white, and she briefly wondered how he had figured it out. She had only seen a few of the birds muster the courage to dive down amongst the giant mouths and she could not see if they came back up with anything.<br/><br/>It wasn’t until Théadan pointed out how hushed the crew was that Navia noticed. To see what he had pointed out for herself, she tore her eyes away from the whales to peruse the crew standing along the<i>Uttarana</i>to gaze upon the sight before them. Théadan was right everyone was so quiet, though she could see the occasional man lean over to a companion and speak to them, often ending in a couple soft laughs. Wanting to know why a normally talkative, jovial group of men were so quiet, Navia also looked to Risho expectantly, only for a smirk to begin forming on her face. He appeared somewhat embarrassed he asked, a bashful look forming on his weathered face as one of his hand went to scratch the back of his head.<br/><br/>“No, my friend, no always,” Risho shrugged, “Only when<i>groso timi</i>come. They want to see how times they jump from water. They…well, they…” Risho paused and looked to Navia uncertainly, not sure what words in the common tongue to use. He uttered one quick sentence in Khluri and Navia blinked at him briefly before laughing and pressing her hand to her lips quickly to stifle it. She didn’t want to disrupt the solemn attitude that had befallen the crew after all. Humor alight in her eyes, she turned to Théadan to explain, “They bet on how many times the whales will jump, and sometimes the way they jump, so they’re waiting to see who in their circle will win. It seems this crew might have a bit of a gambling problem.”<br/><br/>“Sea is not always exciting,<i>Sitvati</i>,” Risho countered to the obvious amusement Navia had from the crewmembers betting on the whales, “My men—<i>Udarka!</i>”<br/><br/>Risho’s explanation was accompanied by a few other sailors yelling out the same for the crew to look, as well as some hands extended over the side of the ship to point down toward the sea. Beneath them, from the dark depths, rose up a dark gray rostrum followed by a streamlined head and body. They made a graceful, unhurried appearance, clearly the animal had no qualms with swimming beneath a ship full of humans. Navia leaned over in time to see the whale’s eye as it swam on its side from beneath the ship toward the rest of the pod, leaving her to wonder if it had purposely swam under them so it could look up and see all the faces staring back down at it. Stark white flippers came next, as well as the rest of its huge body. It turned onto its belly once it was past the ship and dove down, sending its tail to rise out of the water as if reaching for the heavens. Water fell from it, glittering in the sunlight and splashing down to rejoin the rest of the ocean. Its fluke was predominately white on the underside, matching the pectoral fins, and just as massive as the rest of the whale. It sank down slowly, but within moments, the whale was gone and only the swirls of water told of its presence.<br/><br/>Navia stared after the whale for a beat, mesmerized and amazed by the grace the whale had had despite its massive size. It had moved so fluidly, so gracefully, that she wanted badly to see it all over again. But what Risho had been saying was also of great interest to her, and it was what had her turning to grin up at Théadan as Risho turned to speak to one of the crew on the other side of him. She pushed at the loose strands of hair that were catching in the breeze and blowing into her face, but paid them no mind while she looked up at her lover slyly and asked, “So what do you think? I think we will see the whales jump twice. What should we wager? We share our money, so it cannot be that.”