The day the adventure truly began started like any other: Gilbert chasing a runaway kelp spool down the gardens and apologizing profusely when it tangled around three snails and a startled eel. He untangled everyone, brushed himself off, and decided he needed a break from “helping.”
He drifted toward Grandpa Axol’s hollow, a cozy den carved into the side of a warm, bioluminescent rock formation. The walls were lined with old maps, glowstones, pressed sea-petals, and artifacts Grandpa had collected over his many travels. Gilbert visited often, but today Grandpa seemed especially lost in thought, staring at a shimmering blue map spread across the floor.
“You’re frowning,” Gilbert said, plopping beside him.
“Hmm? Oh.” Grandpa Axol tapped the map with a gentle fin. “Just thinking about places I never quite reached.”
Gilbert’s gills fluttered. “Which places?”
“The old ones,” he said, voice low but warm. “The ones that might not exist anymore or might be waiting for someone brave enough to look.”
Gilbert leaned closer. “Tell me?”
Grandpa chuckled. “You’ve heard most of my stories.”
“Not all of them,” Gilbert said (which was objectively true, though he would happily re-hear every single one).
Grandpa Axol’s eyes softened. He traced a path on the map, a swirling series of dotted lines that stopped abruptly near a gently glowing symbol shaped like a crescent moon.
“There,” Grandpa murmured. “The Lost Lagoon of Lumina.”
Gilbert straightened. “Lumina Lagoon isn’t just a myth?”
“Oh, it is a myth,” Grandpa said, “and myths are often true in the ways that matter.”
Gilbert tried to picture it, a lagoon hidden somewhere in the vast ocean, glowing with ancient magic and shimmering light.
“Why is it lost?” Gilbert asked.
“Because no one who searched for it ever found it twice,” Grandpa said simply. “Some say the lagoon appears only to those who need it. Others claim it hides itself from unworthy eyes. And a few believe it’s alive — shifting with the tides, like a creature with secrets of its own.”
“That sounds amazing,” Gilbert whispered.
Grandpa Axol nodded. “They say the water in Lumina Lagoon glows brighter than any reef. That it holds forgotten magic. That inside it, even the darkest shadows are made gentle. I once tried to find it, long ago. Got close, I think. But the ocean chose not to reveal it to me.”
Gilbert’s mind raced. A shifting lagoon. Hidden magic. An adventure waiting for someone with enough curiosity to try.
“What if someone searched again?” Gilbert asked. “What if they really tried?”
Grandpa looked at him, really looked, and a knowing smile slowly grew across his wide face.
“If someone did,” he said softly, “the ocean might finally decide it’s time.”
Gilbert’s heart flipped. His tail wiggled involuntarily.
For the rest of the day, he couldn’t stop thinking about the lagoon. The way Grandpa spoke of it, a mixture of wonder and unfinished longing. The glowing symbol on the old map. The tug he’d been feeling deep in his chest for weeks, like the world whispering look closer, Gilbert.
By the time the lights of Glimmergill dimmed for night, Gilbert knew something with absolute certainty:
He wouldn’t be able to resist this adventure even if he tried.