26 Princess Ham Sandwich
After hearing the old woman's words, Princess Ham Sandwich stirred from her slumber. She sat up rubbing her eyes awake and stretched widely with a yawn.
"Come in, Darleen." She invited.
The door opened and Cherry tensed, ready to grab her clothes and make a run for it.
Darleen entered the bedroom pushing a long cart covered in food. She had a stern face, ramrod straight posture, white hair tied into a neat bun, and a maid's uniform with not a single crease or wrinkle.
She pushed the cart to the bed and wordlessly placed two small tables in front of both Cherry and Princess Sandwich, then placed several breakfast dishes onto both.
"If you need anything, Princess, please call." Darleen curtsied and backed out of the room.
Cherry was somewhat dumbstruck at the complete lack of surprise. She circulated vital energy in her brain trying to drudge up any scattered memories.
The Princess spoke up. "This isn't the first time I've brought someone home, honey." She gave a flirtatious smile. "Though you're certainly the prettiest."
Cherry cast aside any further reservations and started devouring the breakfast before her.
A question did come to mind, though. "Aren't you a princess? Won't being so, uh... 'licentious' be disadvantageous to you, politically speaking?"
"Hardly. Ballywood is much more open minded than other places and other places cannot afford to snub the wealthy and powerful Ballywood Kingdom. I have half a dozen engagement proposals awaiting an answer and a dozen more I have already rejected. That's just from other royal families." Princess Sandwich replied, as if she had answered the question a hundred times before.
The two of them ate in silence. By the time they finished, Cherry had managed to pull together some memories from the previous day.
Cherry moved to get out of the bed when Princess Sandwich stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. "How about once more, so you'll remember me." She licked her lips.
...
In the mid afternoon, Cherry and Sandwich managed to get dressed.
"I've already made some arrangement for the new ship you wanted. Made of only the finest wood and built by the best shipwright in the Kingdom, as requested. You wanted to be there for the construction process, yes? I'll have Darleen direct you to the correct shipyard." Sandwich reminded.
Only vague images swirled in Cherry's mind, but that sounded familiar. She would need to find out how much she spent on that.
She received the directions from Darleen and exited the royal palace, making for the city's dockyards.
She find the right place and went inside where she found a number of workers busy arranging many different cuts of wood.
A man with an air about him that commanded respect approached Cherry when he spotted her. He had toned muscles, dark brown skin covered in scars, a shaved head with a bushy black beard, and his eyes were a shining gold.
"There you are, drunkard girl, just in time. We're about to get started on your ship." He spoke.
"Uh, if you could remind me of what we agreed upon, that would be great..." Cherry said, slightly embarrassed.
"HA! Well, I'll fill you in then, I suppose. You insisted on state of the art techniques, the finest wood, and my personal attention. Since you had the Princess' referral, that would have run you around 150,000,000 Beri for a ship of the size you wanted. However, you insisted on giving us 'every last Beri' to your name to 'make it extra, more good'. Does that help?" He gave a toothy grin. "You can call me Armando, by the way."
'That's it! Drunk Cherry, you and I cannot exist under the same heavens!' Cherry scowled inwardly.
Fortunately, Armando's words did jog her memory as to what she was meant to be doing here. It was pretty ingenious considering she was blackout drunk at the time.
"Thank you for reminding me, Armando. I remember why I wanted to be here now. I hope you don't mind me adding my own personal touches." Cherry said with a smile.
"It's your ship, do what you want. Be careful though, if you ruin any of the wood it'll cost you a pretty penny to replace it." Armando said, returning to his preparations.
Cherry set about to her own work. Which was to infuse the wood with her own vital energy using her devil fruit power.
This was in preparation to Blood Bind the ship to herself. It would be called madness in her previous life, but the rules were different here. The whole of this world was mad.
Still, it wouldn't be easy. Fusing her vital energy significantly reduced the risk of rejection due to its size, but she still had to compress it a great deal.
Over the next month the workers and Armando labored in their craft, while Cherry continued to fuse the wood to the brim with her vital energy and later the rigging, the sails, etc.
It wasn't long before Armando and the others noticed the wood taking a reddish hue.
The finished product was a small state of the art ship that seemed to have been soaked in blood. It almost felt like it thrummed with life to those who went near it, though only Cherry knew it wasn't an illusion.
"Well, I don't know what you did, Cherry, but she's a fine ship in any case. Do you have a name?" Armando asked.
"Hmmm..." Cherry wondered. "The Cabernet!"
"How appropriate." Armando remarked with a smile.
"I'll take her out for a test drive." Cherry said, with ulterior intentions.
Cherry sailed the Cabernet along the coast until she found a secluded spot.
She sat on the deck cross legged and began the process of Blood Binding the ship.
At first it felt like slamming her head into a brick wall, no matter how hard she pushed it wouldn't budge.
Cherry went on this way with little progress and was considering giving up for now and just waiting until a later cultivation realm. However she felt something strange at that moment.
She felt another will reach out to touch her own. As if responding to her, the Cabernet easily became compressed and perfectly bonded with her body.
Cherry felt the other will within her. It wasn't a soul exactly, more like a spirit of some sort that was born from the Cabernet itself.
It was barely aware and seemed to return to whatever slumber it awoke from and vanished from her senses.
'Strange. Very strange.' Cherry thought to look into this in the future. Carefully, so she did not appear to have gone mad, of course.
...
Cherry spent some more time in Ballywood Kingdom dealing with bandits and the occasional pirate for some extra money, in addition to selling her old ship.
Once she was completely resupplied and had a decent amount of pocket money she set back out to sea, homeward bound to Boulder Island.
It had been almost 3 years since she left home, no doubt Grandma Angela was missing her terribly and taking out her frustration on poor Slenk.
Although Cherry still had to man the ship properly, she was able to use its Blood Bound nature to influence it somewhat. Later on, she would be able to completely control it hands free, a day she was looking forward to greatly.
She saw Boulder Island on the horizon a few days before her birthday. The sight brought a happy, but lonely smile to her face and tears threatened to flow at any moment.
