Princess Wallaloo's Great Sacrifice

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Princess Wallaloo's Great Sacrifice

Sitting upon a smooth bolder outside her underwater cave, Princess Wallaloo Dolphina Colalli smiled at the sunbeams warming her pale face filtered through a mere eighteen fathoms of clear green water, thinking that this day could not get any more perfect. That's when she spied the fiery ball hurtling toward her with the speed of a torpedo. She sighed. Wallaloo didn't need her crystal ball to know the distant projectile was in fact her mother's head, her red hair flailing around her as she flipped her tail fin through the water faster than the blades on the rear of human ships. Today wouldn't be so perfect after all.

As her mother swam to a halt, Wallaloo brushed a length of her own dark blonde hair from her eyes and raised a hand in greeting. “Hi, Mom. How was your Mediterranean vacation? Is Queen Neptuna’s court as wild as all the rumors claim?”

Her mother ignored both questions and glared pointedly at Wallaloo's flat stomach. “WDC, today is your eighteenth name day. Please explain to me why you are not yet round with child.”

Wallaloo rolled her eyes and swished her tail fin. “Aw, Mom. It's a ridiculous superstition that I have to get knocked up when I'm eighteen. I don't buy this whole eighteenth daughter of an eighteenth daughter in the eighteenth generation business. Just because some old hag eighteen centuries ago claimed that it had to happen, doesn't mean it's true.”

Her mother kneaded her forehead and took a deep breath of water. “Wallaloo Dolphina Colalli, think about the consequences if it is true and you don't go on this Holy Quest on the land. Our people as a species would be finished.”

“But, Mom, it's weird. Me mating with some ugly, hairy creature—with legs!—just to fulfill a dumb prophecy. What makes you so sure it's necessary?”

Her mother glanced around then leaned close. “I'm going to tell you a secret known only to a few among our leaders. You know the seahorse? Once they were mighty creatures, as smart and powerful as the merpeople. Then their eighteenth daughter of an eighteenth daughter from the eighteenth generation refused to mate with a stallion. Now they are the dumbest and least powerful of all the creatures in the sea.”

Wallaloo whistled. “Wow. This mystical shit really needs to happen. But couldn't maybe one of my sisters go?” She bit her lip. “Marina often says she'd love to visit the land someday, and she's a real slut. I've seen her drooling over topless sailors when she thinks nobody's around to notice.”

“No. You're the only eighteenth daughter of an eighteenth daughter in the eighteenth generation, so suck it up!” She ran a hand through her red hair. “Oh, and please do clean up your language, WDC. Remember you're a princess.”

Wallaloo sighed and raised her hands in submission. “Okay, okay. Chill. I'll do this crazy thing. But what kind of man should I choose to be the father of my prophesied miracle baby?”

“He must be a man of high status among the humans—a leader of men, the head of a nation, the commander of its armed forces. Yet he must also be of low enough morals that he would copulate with a stranger without hesitation, and foolish enough not to question why a young and beautiful girl he has never met before would wish to lay with him.”

“Where on Earth could I find such a strange combination of a man? Finding him could take many moons, but my tutor taught that we may only walk the land one time in our lives, and then only for eighteen days and eighteen nights”—she shivered—“else we are cursed to walk the dry land forever.”

“Fear not, my daughter. I have spoken to our cousins the eighteen queens of the water nymphs, who have themselves conversed with their cousins the eighteen queens of the dryads. I am told that you must swim west to the great Kingdom of the United States and seek out the Royal city of Washington D.C.. In the smaller of two whites palaces there, you shall find your prince.”

“Is he at least as handsome as I could hope?”

Her mother smirked. “Just close your eyes and think of your species.”

“Great.”

“Oh, and happy birthday, WDC.”

“Gee, thanks!”


18 paragraphs
Word count: 740