Hunger

Chapter 1

Columbina Trine wasn't sure if there were enough curses in enough of the world's languages to properly relay her penchant for ill-luck and bad timing. Why she'd thought taking to the sea and trying all by herself to keep a tiny one-woman sailboat well-maintained was beyond any logic her forebears had managed to instill in her.

She'd been on the sea for the better part of a decade at this point and clearly she was still quite bad at it. She'd managed to make it just a couple of feet away from the shoreline before sea water began to lap at her socks through the floor of the vessel.

Her inability to keep a ship's hull repaired wasn't entirely to blame. The hunk of rotting, sinking wood that she'd bought not second, not even third, but probably fourth or fifth hand from that widow and her four children back in Orange Town hadn't been in good condition to begin with. Then, some third-rate pirate brigade had come through and completely obliterated the place, leaving the surviving families with nary a thing to their names. The sailboat was just another piece of collateral and had she not felt the trickle of Hunger at the back of her mind Columbina's judgement would have been better before forking over some of her last remaining berry for it.

She'd traveled by motorbike from nearby Indigo Town and for the last leg of her journey had forgone breakfast and lunch in an effort to not slow herself down, old fashioned regular hunger now clawing at her gut as well. Indigo Town had been a nice base of operations for her Belly Dancing and Burlesque career. She'd been novel enough to find work at the town's lone dance studio as an independent instructor a few times a week and and as evening entertainment at a couple restaurants here and there. The berry she made allowed her to scrape by, but generating a profit had been out of the question. She knew she'd have to leave eventually.

Indigo Town survived on a mono-industry of commercial fishing and the catch hadn't been good this season. Bad economics trickled down to luxuries like restaurants and entertainment and once again she'd found herself without an audience. And no audience meant no berry.

She'd managed to find contract work on a sea liner that rented itself out occasionally as a venue for weddings. Once Columbina had successfully sold herself as featured entertainment on The Sea Blossom by convincing the venue owner of her talent she'd begrudgingly agreed to help out with food preparation on her "off" days as well. It wasn't a gig where she could expect to earn much of a profit either but it would serve as a fill-in until something more worth her time and effort came along.

Gig or no gig there was more than one reason why she couldn't have afforded to stay much longer in Indigo Town anyway. Columbina was convinced she was the first devil fruit user that had ever sat foot in this town, which made the struggle to hide her abilities ever more obligatory.

The eater of the Lilin-Lilin Fruit was cursed to live life as a succubus-type creature. A paramecia type, the Lilin-Lilin fruit caused it's user to develop a persistent, painful if ignored Hunger. The "Hunger" Columbina learned could only be sated by acts of intimacy. Once properly sated she had the ability to store superhuman strength in her body for a short period of time. Once that ability had been depleted it was time to Feed again.

It had forced Columbina into a life of nomadism from the moment she'd been forced to eat it. The fact that she technically had an active bounty on her head made her situation all the more unique. Combined, the fruit and the bounty dictated her every waking move.

Which was why she needed to get to the next place where humans had taken up residence quickly. The splinters, broken glass, and wreckage that was left of Orange Town had caused an unexpected delay in her journey.

Initially, she'd booked passage with an Orange Town ferryman that had agreed to take her straight to the next isle where The Sea Blossom had its docking station. When she'd arrived, the ferryman and any sign of him had simply vanished. He'd either understandably fled or he and his enterprise had been blown into the ether along with the houses and other buildings that had made up Orange Town.