Dragoncrest Cliffs Some feathers I stole from the birds

An odd thing had appeared on the shore. 

She'd seen them out on the ocean, but had never seen one up close. In the water, they floated, and their smoothe, round tops made the ocean look very still. They looked like water themselves, as they drifted along, but what she could barely see was the tangle and mess of tentacles below the surface that hung and trailed behind it. The tide had come in, and with it had come a number of jellyfish. Unable to direct themselves once brought ashore, they were simply left there with the tide went out. 

The beach was dappled with them- and they looked very odd. A big patch of congealed wet, with a trail of long, gnarly tentacles lying very still on the land. They didn't move, breathe, or anything. A curiosity. 

The budding ecologist wanted to investigate them. She wandered from one to the next, looking for signs of life, and giving them a wide berth. Once she decided that they did not move, she got a bit bolder, and sat next to one. Tentatively, she gave the pool of jelly a poke, to see if her paw would sink into it...But it did not. The creature had a skin, or sorts, and was not, in fact, a pile of mush attached to long threads. The jelly was kind of neat. It jiggled when she poked it. Given the fact the creature gave no response, she assumed she wasn't hurting it. 

From far down the beach, a seagull watched her from where it perched atop the rocks, one foot held aloft. 

When she moved to investigate the tentacles, the gull called out. She flicked an ear toward it; gull calls were practically white noise to her, as common as the sound of the waves. The urgency of its calls caused her to lift her head and notice that it was, indeed, her friend with the crooked leg. She smiled at it, and waved her tail, but she was more interested in the thing she'd found on the beach. 

She gently reached out to touch the tentacles, to see what they felt like. At first, she felt nothing. She touched them again, and pulled the tentacles to the side a bit with her claws. Then, she felt a burning. It came on slowly enough that she didn't notice it, until the fierce burning set in a few moments later. Her paw felt warm. Then hot. And then it burned. Even deceased- or apparently deceased- the jellyfish still had its sting. 

She whined as the burn intensified, and immediately headed down the beach to the surf, but by then she was limping, and not putting pressure on her pawpad. She waded in up to her knees and put her paw in the water, hoping it would quell the sting. She whimpered softly, picking her foot up so she could try and see if she had a cut or a wound. Her pawpad was beginning to blister a bit. She whined, miserable, and held her foot under the water, hoping it would make the intrusive burning go away.