Drabble #245: Jolt

[redwolf]

For this prompt, we continue with our one-word/phrase drabble roots:

Jolt

Tell us all about it. Labyfic-style, of course.

Given our entries from recent months, let's continue with the suggested limit of 500 words. Though remember that shorter pieces are most definitely welcome!

Your entry should take the following format, posted as a comment on this entry:

Word count: # of words
$your_beautiful_drabble

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Comments

Grouper

[redwolf]

Word count: 500

Sarah sat hunched over, her tongue peeking between her teeth in concentration, as she carefully added a stroke of watercolour to the paper. Tilting her head, she pondered whether she should leave well enough alone or fiddle with it and risk destroying the work.

Bishop looked up from his work. “Nice nudibranch.”

Sarah blinked owlishly at him. “A what now?” She dropped her brush into the water jar and nudged it further away in the hope that she wouldn’t mix it up with her glass of drinking water. Again.

“You’ve really caught the bright colours.” Bishop nodded to her work. “Your snorkelling trip paid off.”

Sarah hadn’t known what the sea slugs were called, but it didn’t seem right that something so vibrantly coloured could share a name with its terrestrial counterpart even if they were both molluscs.

She’d been snorkeling with Jareth and a handful of goblins in a small sheltered bay. Sarah had expected they’d visit a reef and see coral, but this was more like a deep rock pool. It had seemed void of life when she’d first entered the water until she started to pay attention.

Huge boulders that had long ago fallen from the surrounding cliffs lined the bay and provided shelter for many sea creatures. The obvious of which were the urchins that clung to the rocks, she kicked herself away from them as the gentle swell pushed her near their spikes.

Octopus and eels were spotted lurking amongst the boulders, where they blended into their surroundings, conversely with the kelp that was sporty neon bright slugs. Sarah wanted to touch them, but Jareth had explained that they used stinging cells as a defense mechanism.

As she floated above the sea bed, she watched a small squid dart out over the sand, gasping as they changed colour and seemed to vanish before her eyes.

It took a little while for the fish to get used to their presence. They mostly stayed a safe distance and went about their day, except for the one small fish that must have been attracted to the silver shimmer of air bubbles trapped in her mask. It planted itself right in front of her eyes and moved with her, evading her hand when she reached out, before returning to stare at her. She had to surface to distract it and diving down once more, had been unprepared to see a blue grouper.

“The fish was almost as long as I am tall and it kept nudging me.” Jareth pried an urchin off a rock and it was enthusiastically devoured by the grouper. “I can’t believe a fish has trained divers to feed it.” She’d also learned that aside from urchins, groupers also took an interest in the goblins who had leapt from the inner tube they were floating in to play with the big fish. Jareth had been quick to port them Underground before they became a snack.

“Probably for the best not to see if goblins are edible.”