When All Lights Go Out I (TFP)

Chapter 82

Azura immediately made a face, which was the answer Bee needed from her. "I have tried kelp. I don't like it. But it is something humans do eat daily." Bee brushed the kelp off his arms and checked to see if there was any other pieces of kelp stuck to his body. Azura looked around to see if there was anything else before she began to walk around before stepping on something. She looked down and yelped, jumping to the side in surprise, making Bee look at her with worry. "Ew! I stood on a jellyfish."

Bee was confused and looked at the base of the rock to see a pale creature that was limp on the rock. Azura crouched down and poked it curiously, as she was safe from being stung by the jellyfish. "What is a jellyfish?" Azura looked at Bee in surprise, and Bee shrugged at her. "I don't know what that is. And the name sounds weird too."

Azura looked at the jellyfish, and she could see it looked like a moon jellyfish, so it wasn't as deadly as some of the other jellyfish that live in the ocean. "Well...the simple answer to that...jellyfish aren't actually fish. They are invertebrates with no backbone, or a proper skeleton in their bodies. These tentacles..." Azura gently picked the jellyfish up from the rock to hold it and showed Bumblebee. She points at the tentacles as Bee listened to her. "Have tiny cells in them that stun or paralyze prey to eat. Their stings can be extremely painful, and can cause death if not treated quickly. This little jellyfish I have isn't too dangerous for humans, but they would still feel the sting." Azura lowered the jellyfish back onto the rock gently. "But, in certain parts of the world, there are stingless jellyfish. The reason for that is, they are living in lakes where there are no natural predators."

Bumblebee immediately seemed curious about what jellyfish would need to protect themselves from. "Those things can be eaten? How? If jellyfish sting, how is anything able to eat them? It would have to be..." Azura pointed to the water, and he looked to see a sea turtle swimming through the bay and he looked back at her. "Why are you pointing at that?"

"The sea turtles eat the jellyfish." He looked at the reptile curiously. "They have special scales that allow them to eat jellyfish safely. It is good, because I am certain having an ocean full of jellyfish would be bad for the ecosystem. After all, if jellyfish were able to get big enough, they probably would eat whales too." Azura shuddered at the very thought of that. "At least I didn't destroy this thing. It was already dead."

Bumblebee nodded slowly before he splashed water at her again, making her squeal and giggle loudly. She looked at him and grinned at him. Bumblebee chuckled at her. "We have not exactly finished our game, Azura. I am just getting us back to where we started. Unless, you want to do something else."

Azura giggled at him and splashed water back at him. "You had a lucky shot, Bee!" She squealed when he splashed water at her again. "But I was wanting to see what Raf and Miko are up to, since we have been playing for about forty minutes...I think..." She shrugged as she didn't know how long they had been playing. "But we have been playing long enough that I think I want to join in with whatever they are playing." She looked over at the beach and she saw that Miko and Raf seemed to be building a sandcastle each. "Hmm, they might be having a sandcastle building competition..."

Bumblebee shrugged as he picked the sparkling from the rock and carried her through the shallows to the shore. He looked at Raf and Miko to see what they were making, and he smiled. While their castles were a little bit sloped and not very detailed, he could see that the two were having a good time building the sandcastles. And they both were creating different shaped castles too.

Rafael looked up when he heard Bumblebee approaching and smiled at him. "I see you must have gotten tired of splashing in the bay. Miko and I are just having a competition. When we are finished these sandcastles, Bulkhead is going to judge which one will be the best."