Porpoises

Overview

Porpoises travel the coastal water of the far side in small groups, along the sounds of the Soundchain Roads, the straits of the Tidelace, and the current roads of the Tidebound Reaches. They ride the bow waves of pilot craft and swim alongside travelling runs, and every people that meets them is glad of it. Gnome pilots welcome them aboard their wake, and the Thaluren call them run-guests.

Appearance

A porpoise is a little shorter than a grown man, stout and smoothly rounded, with a blunt head without a beak, a small triangular back fin, and small dark flippers. It is dark grey above and pale grey to white below, the colours blending along the flanks. It swims in quick, smooth rolls, showing its back and fin for a moment as it breathes with a short, sharp puff, like a sneeze, that is the first sign of a group nearby. Underwater it clicks to find its way and its food.

Habitat and Range

They live in the coastal water, sounds, straits, and estuary mouths of the whole north coast, and out along the current roads. They keep to water where fish run, and are commonest in summer.

Behaviour and Temperament

Porpoises feed on shoaling fish, chasing them in quick turns, and live in small, loose groups of a few to a dozen. They are shy of being touched but drawn to moving craft and to swimming crowds, and will play in a pilot craft's bow wave for an hour or keep company with a run for days. They are hunted by blackfins and run-followers, and when those are near the porpoises go quiet and leave.

Life Cycle

A female bears a single calf in early summer, nurses it for most of a year, and bears again soon after. Porpoises live about twelve years.

Uses and Dangers

They harm no one, and they are not hunted on the Tidelace or in the Reaches; a porpoise drowned in a net is a sorrow, and coastal Humans who take one by accident eat it quietly. Pilots value them as company and as a sign: porpoises playing in a sound mean fish and fair water, and porpoises gone quiet mean something hunting.

Lore and Belief

Gnome pilots say a bow-riding porpoise keeps a craft off hidden ground, and while that is not true, no pilot steers away from one. The Thaluren count porpoises that swim with a run as guests of the return, owed the courtesy of water and fish, and a run that loses its porpoises on the current roads takes care, because something has frightened them.

Where It Appears

• Overview: Animals