We are nearly there!
Give them a goal. Your protagonist can be the most perfect narwhal to ever live but that’s boring.
What the reader connects to is the character striving towards something and overcoming barriers to get there.
That goal might not be clear to the character or even the reader at the outset but if you know the direction the character is moving in it will make your life much easier.
It’s a bit like checking the direction you want to go before releasing your ink cloud. It makes escaping much easier if you angle yourself away from the shark first.
Wait, what do mean you humans can’t squirt ink?
