After the close call in the alley, Leo decided his life needed a calming influence. He bought a goldfish.
It was a desperate, grasping attempt at normalcy.
His life had become a spiraling vortex of supernatural chaos, clandestine cover-ups, and a budget that was being systematically annihilated by a cat with the appetite of a small black hole.
He needed something simple.
Something mundane.
Something that just swam in a circle and occasionally blew a bubble.
So he found himself in the aquatic section of his own pet shop, a place he usually left to his part-time employee.
Rows of tanks hummed, filled with the gentle, silent poetry of swimming creatures.
He passed the exotic, neon-bright tetras. Too flashy.
He ignored the majestic, flowing fins of the betta fish. Too dramatic.
He wanted the most basic, most unremarkable, most profoundly normal fish he could find.
And there it was.
In a small, clean tank, all by itself, was a common ornamental goldfish.
It was small, delicate, and a plain, unassuming orange. It swam in a slow, placid circle, its movements a balm to Leo's frayed nerves.
Perfect.
This fish, he decided, would be his anchor to reality. A tiny, swimming symbol of a life less complicated.
He scooped it into a plastic bag, paid his own store for it—a transaction that felt deeply weird—and brought it home.
He named it Goldie.
He set up a new, pristine glass bowl on a quiet corner of his desk. He carefully dechlorinated the tap water, ensuring the temperature was just right.
He was a professional, after all.
Before introducing the fish to its new home, a now-ingrained sense of paranoid caution took over.
He pulled out the Codex.
"Might as well," he muttered to himself. "Wouldn't want to find out it's the dormant reincarnation of a sea serpent after it's already flooded the apartment."
He focused the book on the small, water-filled bag.
The ancient tome glowed, its silver script flowing across the page.
Scanning... New Potential Familiar Detected.
Familiar: Goldie
Species: Common Goldfish (Manifesting)
Bloodline: Azure Dragon's Tear (Trace, 0.003% Awakened)
Secondary Bloodline: Kun Peng's Scale (Fragmentary, Dormant)
Current State: Spiritually Stifled (Impure Environment)
Primary Talent: [Absolute Purity] (Innate Water/Spiritual Purification)
Potential Growth Paths: Pure Water Elemental, Oceanic Guardian, Dragon Whale
Innate Abilities: [Enhanced Metabolism], [Hydro-sensitivity], [Aesthetic Judgment (Latent)]
Leo stared at the glowing text, his dream of normalcy evaporating like a puddle in the desert sun.
Azure Dragon's Tear? Kun Peng's Scale?
His goldfish wasn't an anchor to reality. It was a mythological creature with a latent ability for "Aesthetic Judgment."
My goldfish is going to judge my decor, he thought, a wave of sheer, unadulterated absurdity washing over him. Of course, it is. Why wouldn't it?
He sighed, a long, drawn-out sound of a man accepting his fate as a zookeeper for deities.
He gently tipped the bag, releasing Goldie into the clean, prepared water of the bowl.
Goldie swam a single, slow circle.
Then it stopped.
It floated perfectly still, its tiny fins barely moving.
It turned its body towards the side of the bowl, its gaze seemingly fixed on the glass.
It recoiled.
A faint, almost imperceptible shimmer of blue light pulsed from its scales, a tiny, silent scream of disgust.
Leo frowned. "What's wrong now?"
Goldie ignored him. It swam to the opposite side of the bowl and pressed itself against the glass, as far away from the center of the water as it could get. It looked like a fish trying to phase through a wall to escape a bad smell.
Leo's mind flashed back to the Codex entry. Spiritually Stifled (Impure Environment).
"Impure?" Leo said, offended. "I dechlorinated that water myself! It's cleaner than the air in this city."
Goldie responded by nudging a tiny, decorative pebble at the bottom of the bowl with its nose, pushing it away as if it were a piece of filth.
This isn't just water, human, the gesture seemed to radiate. This is... an insult to my pure lineage. A liquid catastrophe. Find the liquid enlightenment.
Leo groaned, running a hand over his face. "Seriously? A goldfish. A goldfish is judging my tap water? This is a new level of pet snobbery. Next, it'll demand only artisanal ice cubes. My budget weeps."
He decided to experiment. He got out the water filter pitcher from the fridge and filled a cup. Filtered water. Surely that was pure enough.
He carefully swapped out the water in the bowl.
Goldie swam into the new water, paused, and then, with even more pronounced disgust, recoiled again, a ripple of shimmering energy pulsing around it.
This was, apparently, even worse.
Leo was at a loss. What did a mythological dragon-fish-god consider 'pure'?
His eyes scanned the room, landing on a half-empty bottle of expensive, imported spring water on the kitchen counter—a relic from his mother's last visit.
"No," he said aloud. "No, there is no way."
But the thought had been planted.
Goldie, as if sensing his train of thought, swam to the side of the bowl closest to the kitchen and nudged the glass with its tiny fish mouth. It was a clear, unmistakable gesture.
That. Bring me that.
With a sense of profound defeat, Leo poured a small amount of the ridiculously overpriced spring water into the bowl.
The change was instantaneous.
Goldie swam into the new water with a visible shiver of delight.
The faint, blue shimmer around its scales brightened, swirling into a soft, calming aura.
It swam in joyous, energetic loops, its fins tracing elegant patterns in the water. It even blew a single, perfect bubble that floated to the surface and popped with a sound like a tiny, crystal bell.
It was, without a doubt, the happiest fish Leo had ever seen.
It was also, without a doubt, the most expensive fish to keep hydrated.
Leo stared from the pristine bottled water to the joyously swimming goldfish. A cleanliness-obsessed, water-bending demigod who demanded designer water.
Of course.
Why would his life be any different?