Welcome,
My dear friend.
Tonight,
Drift into the legend of the whale who swallowed the moon.
A tale whispered by the waves and almost forgotten by time.
They say she rose from the depths to keep the moon safe.
Cradling her within until the world was ready to remember.
On a night when the sea turned to glass,
A boy named Nico followed her call and found the kind of light that doesn't shine but softens.
My name is Jacob Evans and it's an honor to be here with you tonight.
As the sea quiets,
Rest here beside Nico and let the rhythm of the water soften your breath.
You have done enough for today.
Truly,
It is enough.
Close your eyes now and let the moonlight return to you as you drift gently into this magical tale.
The tide was quiet that night.
Nico sat barefoot on the sand with his arms wrapped around his knees,
Gazing out at the sea.
The moon hung full and low above the horizon.
Her light stretched like silk across the water.
She made everything feel softer,
His thoughts,
His breath,
The ache he sometimes couldn't name.
Whenever the world felt too loud or uncertain,
He came here.
For the moon never asked anything of him.
She simply stayed.
A breeze stirred his hair.
He didn't pay it much attention at first.
But the wind grew restless,
Tugging at the sea with invisible hands.
Waves began to churn.
The trees behind him whispered in alarm.
Clouds,
Thick and dark,
Rolled over the stars,
Swallowing the edges of the sky.
Then came the rain.
It fell in cold,
Sun sheets,
Drenching Nico before he could rise to his feet.
Thunder cracked open the air.
He turned and ran,
His heart hammering toward the shallow cave nestled at the base of the cliffs.
It wasn't deep,
But it was dry.
He crouched there in the shadows.
Hugging himself as the storm howled just beyond the stone.
Lightning split the sky in crooked veins.
And thunder rolled across the sea.
And through the jagged mouth of the cave,
Nico saw it.
A shape rose from the water.
Immense,
Glowing faintly in the stormlight.
It moved with a kind of grace he had never imagined.
The air bent around it.
The sea hushed beneath it.
It was alive.
The creature soared into the storm.
Vast,
Slow,
And silent.
Its silhouette framed by white fire.
Each movement echoed with something older than the wind.
Older than the waves.
The figure climbed higher,
Vanishing into the black sky above.
Into the chaos.
Into the place.
Where the moon had been.
And then the wind faded.
The rain stopped.
The sea grew still.
And the storm moved on.
Nico stepped from the cave.
Barefoot and wide-eyed.
He looked up at the sky.
The sky was quiet now.
Scattered with stars.
But the moon was gone.
And the ocean had become a mirror.
The wind had vanished.
Even the smallest waves had disappeared.
The sea stretched out flat and silent.
A perfect mirror of the star-scattered sky.
Nico had never seen anything like it.
It was as if time itself had paused to listen.
He stood at the water's edge.
The sand cooled beneath his feet.
His breath came slow.
The memory of the flying creature still vivid behind his eyes.
And though he couldn't explain why,
He felt something pulling at him.
Gently.
Steadily.
A quiet invitation.
He untied the old rowboat that always waited near the dunes.
Pushed it into the water and climbed in.
The oars dipped soundlessly into the glassy surface.
Sending ripples across the stars.
He didn't know where he was going.
He only knew he had to go.
The further he drifted,
The stronger the feeling became.
Like being watched,
But not with eyes.
It was deeper than that.
The air felt charged with something ancient and knowing.
Then,
Far ahead,
A pale glow shimmered just beneath the surface.
Nico stopped rowing.
The water began to move on its own,
Guiding the boat forward.
From the deep,
A shape began to rise.
Massive and slow.
A whale surfaced,
Silently.
Silent and radiant.
Its skin glistening with flecks of moonlight.
It held the stillness of the sea in its eyes.
Nico didn't move.
His breath caught as a voice.
Warm and deep entered his mind.
You saw me.
His thoughts trembled.
What?
What are you?
A keeper,
The whale answered.
A bearer of light.
The glow beneath her skin pulsed gently.
The glow beneath her skin pulsed gently.
The moon was not taken.
She is here.
I hold her while the world forgets her light.
Nico stared,
Wide-eyed.
He didn't know how any of this could be real.
But he felt the truth of it in his chest.
The whale slowly turned.
And her mouth began to open.
Not wide or threatening.
But slow.
Like a door easing open to a sacred place.
Come,
She said.
See for yourself.
Nico stepped softly into the open mouth of the whale.
His small boat gliding forward as if the sea were his.
The sea itself carried it.
There was no fear in him now.
Only a quiet awe.
Like stepping into a cathedral of breath and bone.
Inside,
The world was different.
The walls shimmered like dusk-lit water.
Glowing faintly with a light that pulsed from deep within.
It wasn't dark.
It wasn't cold.
The air was thick with stillness.
And something that felt like a memory.
The boat floated deeper.
And Nico's eyes widened.
Suspended in the center of the whale's vast inner chamber was the moon.
Whole and round.
But softened like she was sleeping.
Her light wasn't sharp or distant here.
It moved in waves,
Washing over him gently.
Wrapping him in warmth.
It felt like a hundred things at once.
The safety of his mother's voice.
The way sunlight danced on the river behind his house.
The quiet comfort of being held without knowing what to do.
Needing to speak.
The whale's voice echoed inside him again.
She shines not to be seen,
But to remind.
Her light is love.
His joy.
His joy is the part of you that never left.
Nico felt something stir in his chest.
The ache he carried.
One he'd never been able to name.
Rose like a tide.
Loneliness.
Fear.
The weight of wanting to belong.
To be enough.
He didn't push it away.
And neither did the light.
The moon pulsed wildly.
Once,
As if she heard him.
As if she knew.
Her glow poured into the hollow spaces inside him.
Not to fix,
But to soften.
To hold.
Tears slipped down his cheeks,
But they didn't sting.
They felt like part of the healing.
Like water meeting water.
For the first time in as long as he could remember,
Nico felt whole.
The whale began to rise.
Nico sat in the boat,
Still glowing from within.
As her great body lifted him once more into the night.
The sea stirred gently now.
The stars blinking bright above.
And,
Slowly,
Gracefully,
She opened her mouth to the sky.
The moon floated upward.
Silent and whole.
Rising back into her place among the stars.
Spilled across the ocean in silver threads.
The waves moved again.
Soft and rhythmic.
As if breathing.
The whale's voice echoed one final time.
Her light is in you now.
Nico drifted back to the shore.
The sea rocking him like a cradle.
And beneath the moon's gentle gaze.
He curled into the sand.
His heart full of light.
And let himself be held by the night.
Soft and whole.
Until sleep carried him into dreams lit by silver.
