I do not, in any way, own One Piece. All original characters belong to Eiichiro Oda.

One Piece: The Musician

Chapter 1: The Story About a Girl Who Couldn't Swim

One may not find it plausible that any human being could be as one with the ocean and at the same time not be able to swim in it. Thus is the story of Arina, the girl who could become water, but drown in it all the same.

Now you must be truly confused. Perhaps you are familiar with the legend of the Devil's Fruits. Oh, the how the stories fly. Myths about turning into smoke or sprouting hands from wherever the wielder chooses. Each fruit has a particular name, repeated twice for effect. Gum Gum, Chop Chop, Hana Hana, etc. However, there is one fruit… Not particularly more dangerous than any of the other fruits... Just stranger. This fruit had a name. It was different from the others. It didn't have a repeat. It was simply known as the Fruit of the Seas.

Whether these fruits were created by man or by the Devil is dubious, but the most ambiguous part is the creator's mindset. What possessed this being to create (of all powers) a fruit that, upon eating it, can change you into water (and anything you touch) and all the same, take away your ability to swim?

Arina would not be able to answer this and up until she was ten, she could honestly say she didn't care. Not that Arina wasn't familiar with the Devil's Fruits and the pirate world in general. Being the daughter of Blackbeard (perhaps the most notorious pirate to roam the Grand Line) made her a sort of make-shift pirate princess. Captain Blackbeard spoiled his only daughter rotten, lavishing her with gifts that he'd have crew members send to her home on the island of Rhea (just short off the coast of Rahudell). Arina's father was often the butt of her jokes, saying that no one should fear him, as deadly as he is.

Blackbeard showered Arina with unconditional love and in turn Arina adored her father. To be a captain of her own pirate crew was her dream and she was well prepared for it. Arina had grown up in a town where pirates frequented. Most of them gaunt and starving from their long journey through the Grand Line and she knew full well that the pirates that passed through her town were the best of the best, reaching their final leg of the race towards the legendary One Piece. The pirates that Arina met were always warm and friendly to her (perhaps out of fear of angering Blackbeard). When she was a child, they had always joked that Arina would become the very first queen of pirates. When she grew older, she carried intelligent conversations about the dangers of the Grand Line and all the legends of treasures.

When Arina was fourteen, her long-suffering mother became fed up with constantly waiting for her husband to come home and she set out for Rahudell. After a year, Arina assumed her mother was dead. So, she took over her mother's job as owner of the town tavern.

As soon as she became the owner, the tiny tavern became famous, or perhaps infamous to pirates around the world. Some say just this little bar was worth braving the Grand Line for. The tavern was filled with beautiful waitresses and bartenders (men and women) and if you were incredibly lucky, you may even be greeted by the goddess-like beauty, the daughter of Blackbeard, Arina. Of course, like any child of an infamous pirate, if you got too fresh with her, she would have no choice but to call for help. Well, actually in her case, she'd just throw you out herself.

That's right, Arina was as skilled as she was beautiful. Swords, guns, martial arts; they were all the same to her. Simple. In fact she was skilled in just about everything she did. Cooking, bartending, and the one skill she was famous for. Her music. Every night, she would get up on stage and play a piece on her aging violin. Sometimes it was a classical piece, gentle and soothing. Other times it was contemporary, exciting and happy. In all candor, no pirate that passed through the bar cared what she played. Perhaps, it was because men out at sea had not seen women for years. Or perhaps Arina was truly just that beautiful. But when she entered that room, no man breathed. No pirate spoke a word until she exited.

Thus, the years passed by just like that. Same thing everyday. She would wake up; shower; eat; open the tavern (which was under her apartment); greet any early guests and bid to their wills (food, drinks, etc.); the waiters and waitresses would come around noon and she would go upstairs to pick out the piece she would play that night; eat lunch; work at the bar. At around five, the tiny tavern usually got rather crowded. The happy hour, if you will. If there was a new crew in town, Arina would greet them personally. Then at around ten, she'd get up on stage and play. At midnight, she'd shoo the pirates out and told them to come back the next night. Arina went to bed every night around twelve thirty.

Her catch phrase for the tavern was interesting: Guaranteed a pirate brawl, every night. And indeed, there was. Fights over nothing. Fights over everything. The fights brought in as many people as the food.

Arina's bar meant very much to her and it worried her that maybe she would not be able to leave it to become a pirate. She would not be able to fulfill her dream because she just could not leave her beloved tavern.

Arina had just barely turned twenty when someone very motivated entered her pub and tried to persuade her to leave with him and his crew.

End.