"I think the one out there with the cat half is a herring gull," she reported. "They're the most common, just your basic mostly white gull with gray wings. I'm not sure, though. There are a lot of similar ones."
"I'm devastated not to know," Eren said, grinning.
Lucy made a face at him and tossed another bit of bread and cheese to the raccoon griffin. It snapped it out of the air.
"Devastated, Lucy!"
"Then I hope you'll be less devastated to know this one is some sort of jaeger or skua. Supposedly they can whistle. Say something," she said hopefully to the raccoon griffin. "Speak."
It opened its beak hopefully for more. Lucy obligingly tossed it another crumb.
"Your griffin training technique needs work." Eren held up two large cans. "What do you think, beef stew or bean stew?"
"Beef," she decided, and flipped more pages of the book. "I think the one that looks like an, um, like a sort of opossum is a tern of some kind. Maybe a sooty tern. Or a black tern."
"One good tern deserves another," Eren said. He was really getting into the swing of this. "Maybe it'll go find one."
He dished the stew into tin plates, and they took them up to the deck and ate with Dane, supplementing their hearty stew dinner with thick chunks of homemade bread. Lucy fed bits of hers to the trash griffins, all of which were now willing to take food from her fingers, although they still hissed at the two men.
"Draw straws for first watch?" Eren suggested. It was fully dark now, and Dane had throttled back to the boat so they weren't running blind. The ocean was huge around them, the sky full of stars overhead. They were far enough north that it hadn't gotten completely dark; there was still some light on the horizon, a distant faint glow as if the sun was still visible somewhere below the rim of the world.
"I'll take it," Dane said. "I'm not sleepy."
Eren and Lucy went below and cleaned up. Then, with the door up to the pilot house securely latched and the lights off, they quietly made love to the gentle rocking of the boat.
"I don't know if I can sleep," Lucy said softly, as they cuddled afterward. "I'm so keyed up about tomorrow."
But only a few minutes after that, Eren felt her relaxing into a deep sleep. A day out on the ocean, in the sun and the wind, was exhausting for people who weren't used to it—and even for those who were. He could feel the undertow of sleep dragging at him.
Instead, he gently untangled himself from Lucy and left her asleep. He went up to relieve Dane at the helm.
"I'm afraid there's only one bunk on this tub and it's taken," Eren said quietly. He handed Dane a blanket. "This is about all I've got."
Dane shrugged. He wrapped the blanket around himself and curled up on deck. "I've slept in worse places."
"Really not selling it here, bro."
Dane fell asleep quickly. Eren had an uneventful few hours on watch, gazing out at the sky as the stars were swallowed by oncoming clouds. Eventually he felt his eyes growing gritty and his gaze began to blur, so he went down to wake Lucy.
She came awake sleepy and pliant, rubbing her eyes. Eren yearned to just crawl in with her, wrap his arms around her and nestle his face into her shoulder.
Instead, he handed her clothes to her, waited for her to get dressed, and took her up top. Speaking quietly to avoid waking Dane, they did a quick survey of the gauges.
"If it gets rough at all, wake me or Dane. Mostly, all you need to do is just keep a hand on the wheel and make sure we don't drift too badly."
"Gotcha," Lucy said. She yawned.
"Are you comfortable with this? No need to push yourself if not. I can wake Dane."
"No, I'm fine. No worries."
Eren went below. He had expected to be anxious about Lucy's first time on night watch alone, but instead he found that on some soul-deep level, he trusted her utterly. He fell asleep almost instantly.
* * *
He woke to Lucy nudging him.
"Hey there," she whispered.