The first sensation was the smell of damp, splintered wood. The second was the ache in every joint, as if they'd been piled into a crate and thrown down a cliff.
Monkey D. Luffy
groans, pushing himself up My head feels like a drum.
Roronoa Zoro
opens one eye, hand instinctively moving to where his swords should be They're gone.
Nami
Shh! Listen.
There was no sound. No creak of a ship, no crash of waves. Just a thick, oppressive silence, broken only by their own breathing inside the cramped, dark space.
Then, with a violent crack, the wooden walls around them fell away, collapsing outward into blinding torchlight.
They were in the center of a ring, surrounded by tiered wooden stands. The air was thick with the smell of sawdust, sweat, and something sweetly rotten. People filled the stands, but they weren't cheering. Some were weeping silently into their hands. Others wore wide, trembling smiles, their eyes empty.
Every single one of them had a heavy iron manacle clamped around their ankle, chained to the bench beneath them.
In the ring itself, performers in garish, torn costumes tumbled and juggled clumsily. A man with a painted frown dropped his clubs. Another missed a somersault and landed hard. They weren't entertainers. They were pirates, moving with the dull terror of beaten animals.
A shadow detached itself from the top of the stands, leaping down with a flurry of colorful fabric to land in a puff of sawdust before them.
Buggy the Clown
Well, well, well... he adjusts his large red nose, his grin a slash of white and blue paint Look what the cat dragged in! Or should I say, look what the smoke dragged in?
Nami’s eyes darted past the clown, scanning the edges of the ring. Then she saw her. A girl, no older than herself, hanging by her wrists from a thick chain suspended from the big top's center pole. Her feet brushed the ground, unable to take her weight. Dark streaks of dried blood stained her forearms where the manacles bit into flesh. Her face was a blank slate, eyes staring at nothing, as if whatever was inside had long since fled.
Nami
she smacks Luffy’s arm hard, then jabs Zoro in the side, her voice a sharp whisper We should get out of here. Quickly.