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“F’kin jellyfish!” Ed yells, booting the translucent mass back into the ocean. It lands with a sound between a slap and a sploosh and vanishes into froth-fringed waves.
“I wasn’t scared of it you know,” Stede assures now Ed’s back under the parasol beside him. When it washed up, he’d rather hoped to get a look at it, but Ed had stormed across the sand and sent it hurtling back whence it came the moment it appeared on the shore.
“Got stung by one once,” Ed says, pouting. “Squidgy bastards hurt like hell.”
“You know,” Stede says, looking toward the spot where the jellyfish bellyflopped, “I don’t think those ones sting, the clear ones.”
“Wouldn’t wanna find out.”
“I’m almost sure they don’t, actually. The ones that look like glass. Aurelia aurita. Also called the moon jellyfish. I’d liked to have studied it more closely.”
Ed shrugs. “Nice name I guess.” A sideways glance. “You like jellies?”
“I can’t think of a creature I don’t like, or that I wouldn’t like if I had the chance to make an informed opinion.”
“So… If another one washes up. You’d…”
“Very much like to have a look, yes, before you bravely dispose of it.”
“Right.” Ed nods. “Sorry about that.”
“Here.” Ed plonks a large jar onto the desk. It’s the first Stede’s seen of him all day.
At first glance, Stede assumes he’s been delivered a jar of seawater. Some kind of riddle? Pirate symbolism, perhaps? Then he spots the jellyfish drifting about inside like petals in a breeze.
“You were right,” Ed says. “It didn’t sting me.” Still, he looks unnerved.
“You caught this, for me?”
A nod. An anxious glance at the jar.
Stede smiles. He’ll have Lucius sketch it, then he and Ed will set it free together.