It was a peaceful day in the Orange Village. The Orange Steves were happily going through the village, carrying baskets full of fruits and setting them down in the center of the village, where others would take them and sort through the harvest to organize and distribute the different varieties. The gatherers would find another empty basket, and go back out into the neighboring forest to repeat the process.

It was the time of year when some of the trees of the forest would have abundant fruit on their branches, and the Orange Steves go out and find them each year, harvesting a multitude of fruits and looking for any new saplings that had appeared since the previous yield. There was always a wide variety; Oranges were most common, of course, but there were also different kinds of apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, grapefruit, persimmons, nectarines, and figs. A bountiful harvest that's enough to last the whole village a long while if responsibly stored, especially useful when winter comes around.

An Orange Steve a bit different from the rest places down another basket of fruit by the group in charge of sorting, returning a smile from one of them as he leaves. Picking up one of the emptied baskets, he heads towards the forest once more. Passing by the Orange Leader for a moment, they quickly exchange greetings before the Leader returns to tallying the amount of fruit collected, and the Orange Steve excitedly runs back to the edge of the village.

Despite the beginning of the forest being dark oak, it soon becomes tall oak trees towering over him, beams of sunlight coming through between the treetops. The sound of birdsong seems to follow him wherever he goes, and he occasionally sees a butterfly or two fluttering through the leaves and descending to the flowers on the forest floor. He smiles as he walks, enjoying the warm weather during this year's harvest.

Scanning the area, he walks for a while longer before he finally spots a persimmon tree with so many fruits on it that the branches are being weighed down. The Orange Steve quickly dashes over to it and sets his basket down, already picking persimmons happily. It's not long before he has his arms full, and he carefully puts the picked fruit into his basket before going back to picking.

In his excited focus, he doesn't notice an approaching figure.

Behind him, a silhouette slowly walks towards the Orange Steve. It wears baggy clothes and half its face is obscured, only showing a smile barely visible in the shadows of the trees. It's carrying something, something large and bulky, one arm holding it while the other is concealed in a pocket.

It steps closer, and the Orange Steve is still unaware.

Closer.

Closer.

"Hey Orange."

"Yaaugh!"

Orange Steve quickly turns around and throws a persimmon he had just picked at Sabre, who nonchalantly catches it with his free hand and laughs. Orange realizes who it is and becomes annoyed.

"Sabre! Don't sneak up on me like that!" He says, almost scolding his friend. "If I had something else in my hand I would've accidentally hurt you!"

"Good thing you didn't, then." Sabre replies with his signature smile. He takes a bite out of the persimmon that was thrown at him.

"You're not supposed to be eating the fruit, Sabre, we're supposed to be harvesting."

"You threw it at me, so it's fair game."

"That's not how that works." Orange says, calming down and starting to smile. "So, have you found anything yet on this run?"

"Yep! Take a look." Sabre answers, finishing the persimmon and swinging his arm to set down his two baskets at his feet.

Orange peers inside, and sees that the baskets are full of ripe pears. Beaming, he looks back up at Sabre as he picks up the baskets again, swinging them over his shoulder.

"You found the pear tree, nice!" Orange says. "A lot of the others are gonna be happy about that."

"Yeah, and it had a sapling nearby. It's not gonna be the only one there soon." Sabre smiles. "Do you need help with the persimmons?"

"Nah, I got it. You scared me just as I finished filling up the basket. Let's take these back to the village."

"On it, chief."

The two then head back to the village, talking as they travel. It's not long before they pass through the dark oak trees and approach the houses, seeing a familiar group of other Orange Steves dropping off their baskets. As they get closer, the group recognizes them as well and wave them over.

"Hey guys! What'd you find this time?" Funny asks as the group of four approach the two. "Me and Happy found grapefruit, Shy found nectarines, and Nerdy got some oranges!"

"That's great! I found persimmons, and Sabre ended up finding the pears." Orange smiles, showing his basket to them. Sabre does the same.

"Oooh, cool!" Happy exclaims. "Sabre, was there anything else around the pear tree?"

"Yeah, a sapling." Sabre replies. "There's gonna be another pear tree soon."

"Awesome!"

"We've been waiting for that tree to start growing saplings, since it's a newer addition to the forest orchard." Nerdy explains. "Everyone's been hoping it would happen since that means there'd be more of a harvest for pears, because with one tree there's not too much to go around."

"Well this is gonna be good news for everyone, then." Sabre smiles.

The conversation is interrupted by the Orange Leader getting everyone's attention. Everybody turns to look as he begins speaking.

"Everyone, it's starting to get late, so we're gonna wrap up the harvest for today!" The Leader announces. "Anyone coming back from the forest please drop off your baskets, and anyone with empty baskets put them back in the pile. Once everyone's returned and accounted for, we'll start cleaning up. If you see someone coming back from the forest, tell them today's harvest is over, alright?"

The people of the village all say some form of agreement, then follow the Leader's instructions. Sabre and Orange talk with the friendly group as they give their baskets to the sorting party, and they're about to start helping with the cleanup when Nerdy begins to panic.

"Oh no, where'd it- shoot!" He says to himself, hurriedly checking his pockets.

"What's wrong?" Orange asks.

"I left my book in the forest! I took it out while taking a break and must not have put it back in my pocket properly, because it looks like it fell out." Nerdy explains, sighing. "And it's getting late, so I can't go back out and get it... guess I can only hope it doesn't rain tonight."

"Oh no..." Shy says quietly. "And that was your favorite one..."

"Hey, it's okay man, I'll get it for you." Sabre says.

"You will?!" Nerdy asks, his face lighting up.

"Yeah, I'm not scared of the dark. Where'd you last have it?"

"I took a break while picking oranges from the trees on the west side of the forest, the cleared out part that we all call an orchard." Nerdy recalls. "And there was a small pond next to the trees I was at."

"Orange trees on the west side in a clearer area next to a pond, got it. I'll be back in no time."

"Be careful, Sabre." Orange says, looking a bit worried. "Remember that-"

"I know bud, things come out at night and stuff. I can defend myself, remember?" Sabre says. "Besides, I'm not gonna take that long. I'll be back before sunset, promise."

"Alright. But still, you don't exactly have a good track record of staying out of trouble."

"Oh, shut up." Sabre laughs. Orange laughs with him.

Sabre waves to his friends as he leaves, heading into the forest once more. At first taking the same path through the dark oak, he soon branches off towards the west side of the forest once he sees the oak trees again.

Moving through the forest, he remembers the path to the clearer area Nerdy was talking about. As he walks, however, he feels a thrum coming from inside. Rolling his eyes, he sighs and begins to seemingly talk to himself quietly.

"I know, Goblin, we're hungry. You're not the only one getting upset about it, but unlike you I'm still going to try to be nice." He says, scolding an unseen entity.

The thrum evolves into a myriad of feelings, all coming from Goblin. Knowing this is how he communicates, Sabre focuses on them and deciphers each.

Annoyance, indignation, impatience, boredom

"You're just mad because we were surrounded by food we weren't allowed to eat."

Anger

"Oh, quiet you. Look, once we find Nerdy's book, maybe we could take some oranges from the trees. Not too many though, they'll notice."

Satisfaction, agreement

"Thanks for being reasonable."

Even though he was being difficult, Sabre had to agree with Goblin. It had only been a few hours since he had last eaten (not counting the persimmon from a half hour ago), and yet he felt like he hadn't eaten at all that day. He was very much used to the feeling by now, but he still couldn't ignore it as he entered the area filled with orange trees.

The smell of citrus was almost overwhelming, but not unpleasant. Looking around, Sabre spotted the pond Nerdy mentioned and a group of large rocks. Next to the stones was a book with a muted green cover lying on the ground. Sabre walks over and picks it up, seeing it's a book on chemicals and their different reactions.

"No wonder he didn't notice he dropped it... it blended in with the grass." Sabre mumbles, pocketing the book.

He was about to turn back towards the village when he heard a familiar sound.

A familiar, unwelcome sound.

Sabre looked to his right to see a few Darkness figures stumbling out of the trees, readying to attack. As they get closer, the noise that he's figured out only he can hear becomes louder and louder, the static humming starting to become irritating. And not just for him.

Sabre takes out his sword as a black, semi-solid mass pops its head out from the collar of his hoodie.

"Remember, don't eat these ones. We don't know what Darkness will do to us." Sabre warns, the creature rolling his eyes and growling some kind of response. Sabre snickers at it.

"Whatever, Goblin. Just don't do something stupid."

And as the Darkness took one more step, the fight began.

As Sabre swung his sword, slicing one of the creatures in half, Goblin stretched and wrapped around another like a snake. The Darkness screeched and howled as it was constricted, until its form couldn't take it anymore and it fell apart, black goop spilling onto the ground.

Just as he was about to turn towards it, Sabre was suddenly grabbed from behind by the last Darkness, it seeming to be trying to choke him. He reacted quickly and stabbed his sword into the creature's torso, but even as it writhed in pain it wouldn't give up. Feeling his other half panic, Goblin returned to Sabre in a flash as he yelled;

"Alright, how about you try ignoring this then!"

Followed by a skrch noise as black spikes erupted from his back, skewering the Darkness.

The being quickly dissipated, the Darkness turning into a liquid-like goo that was harmless to him. It slid off his back and to the ground, disappearing into the dirt. The incessant hum has stopped. Goblin reappears, looking at the patch of ground the Darkness disappeared to as Sabre picked his sword back up.

"Well, that was pretty easy." He grinned, sheathing his blade. "Good thing none of them had weapons. Too bad we can't eat them, though..."

Goblin gives Sabre a curious look, Sabre huffing in return.

"I'm sorry, do you really want to find out what eating infective shadow gloop would do to us? I'm pretty sure it'd be nothing good."

Goblin rolls his eyes.

The conversation is interrupted by the sounds of shuffling, groans, and clanking coming from behind them. Sabre turns around to see a horde of zombies and skeletons approaching. A quick glance at the sky through the tree canopies shows that it had started getting dark faster than Sabre expected.

However, this wasn't a problem for them. Sabre simply smiled as the monsters approached, his grin growing unnaturally wide.

"These guys, on the other hand..." Sabre grinned, Goblin mimicking him, showing an array of long, sharp, pointy teeth that seemingly appeared out of nowhere.

Sabre steadied himself, and the mobs had no time to react before the two lunged.

—————————————————————————————————————

Sabre approached the village, the streets and houses being bathed in warm light from the streetlamps. He could hear all of the Oranges Steve talking and having fun, celebrating today's good harvest.

As he entered, a few Orange Steves waved and said hello, one or two warning him that his friend had been worrying about him. Sabre laughed a bit as he went on his way, soon seeing the center of the excitement.

The center of the village had gone from a sorting center to a small party, with fairy lights strung between the surrounding houses and some of the musically talented Orange Steves playing instruments as their friends danced along. Simple benches were placed along the sides of the street, letting some of the crowd take a rest while the others continued to play. Sabre noticed that a few Steves were handing out pastries made with some of the fruit harvest to anyone that wanted some, which he (and Goblin, excitedly making an internal hum) found most appealing.

He was about to walk over, but a familiar face suddenly slammed into him and stops him in his tracks. Sabre laughs as Orange hugs him tight.

"What did I just tell you?! And you said you'd be back before it got dark!" Orange says, letting go of Sabre. "Also, why do you smell like citrus-?"

"Finding Nerdy's book took a bit longer than I thought it would, sorry about that man." Sabre replies, taking said book out of his pocket and holding it up. "Anyway, where-"

"Sabre, you're not answering my question. Did you climb around the orchard?"

Sabre stayed quiet. He had to mask the smell of zombie rot somehow, and he was just so conveniently surrounded by orange trees... did it really matter if he only took a few fruits? Orange starts laughing.

"Whatever, you went out and got Nerdy's book for him, so I guess it's fair that you get a couple snacks. You only took a couple, right?"

"Yeah, just twelve."

"Good. Now let's give Nerdy's book back to him, the group's over here."

Orange leads Sabre through the party, over to a group of Orange Steves sitting on one of the benches. The group of friends greets them as they approach, and Sabre spots the Steve he was looking for.

"Hey Nerdy, found your book." Sabre smiles, handing the book to him.

Nerdy excitedly takes it, beaming. He holds it close as he looks up at Sabre.

"You actually found it! Thank you so much!" He exclaims. "Oh, I was so worried it'd get ruined... I hope it wasn't too much trouble for you."

"Nah, it was no problem. It just took a little bit because it was the same color as the grass. I must've glanced over it like, five times!"

The group laughs. Sabre and Orange find seats on the bench, and begin talking with their friends.

"Today's harvest was great, huh? The Leader said that there's more extra fruit than there ever has been!" Happy says.

"Yeah, we're all gonna be busy canning and preserving all of it pretty soon." Funny adds. "Remember that one time Beekeeper accidentally mixed up salt and sugar while making jam?"

"Oh yeah, he was pretty upset about that."

"I'm pretty sure that the Leader only stopped the harvest when he did because we were running out of room to store the fruit." Orange Steve says, giggling.

"I-I'm actually glad there w-was so much extra this year..." Shy says softly. "We w-won't have to worry as much i-in winter."

"That's true. And there's still a lot more to gather before all of the fruit becomes out of season." Sabre replies. "Hopefully none of the ones still on the trees go bad before you guys finish preserving what was gathered today."

"Yeah, me too. That'd be a waste." Funny says.

Happy then gets up from his spot, looking towards another part of the celebration.

"Well, I'm gonna go get some pastries from the bakers, anyone wanna join me?" He asks.

"Ooh, I do!" Funny almost jumps up.

"I'll go too." Orange smiles.

"Is that even a question? Duh." Sabre grins, also getting up.

"Of course you would be excited about food." Nerdy says, messing with Sabre's hair for a moment. Sabre quickly fixes it.

"Hey, shut up." He laughs.

"I-I'll stay here s-so nobody takes our bench." Shy says, speaking a little bit louder. "Can you get me a peach o-one?"

"Of course, thanks for saving our spot, Shy!" Happy says, running off as the rest of the group follows him.

Soon enough, the group returns with baked pastries in various flavors, and continue their conversation. As it begins to get late, the party winds down, and Sabre and Orange Steve start saying their goodbyes before heading off to teleport home.

"Come back soon, alright? You guys are fun!" Happy says, hugging Orange.

"We will, don't worry!" Orange replies, hugging back.

"Yeah, and remember, the Hub's always open if you want to visit us." Sabre smiles.

"Y-You're sure we won't bother you?" Shy asks.

"Of course Shy, and if we're not there you can wait a bit or leave a note. It's no issue." Orange tells him as Happy lets go.

"Don't take too long to come back though, or we're just gonna hunt you down!" Funny laughs as he picks Sabre up in a bear hug.

"Careful Funny, you might crush him-!" Nerdy warns, but Orange and Sabre laugh as Funny puts him back down.

"Oh you don't need to worry about that, buddy." He says. "Sabre is a lot tougher and stronger than he looks."

"Yeah. Observe!" Sabre grins, and in seconds he's lifted Funny up and is holding him above his head. Funny, quite surprised, is laughing as he looks down at Sabre.

"Dude, how are you doing that?!" He exclaims.

"You look like you're gonna throw him." Happy laughs as well.

"Nah, I wouldn't do that. Don't worry."

"No roughhousing, guys!" The Orange Leader calls out from a little ways away. He simultaneously looks worried and exasperated.

"We're not! Just messing around." Sabre answers, putting Funny back down.

"Dude, we should show that to Miner." Funny says as he's once again on the ground. "He'd take that as a challenge."

"Another day, though. We have to get home now." Orange says, turning. Sabre does the same, getting the cue. "See you later!"

"Bye guys!"

Only stopping for a moment to receive some leftover pastries from the village bakers (apparently some flavors weren't as popular, and they knew they wouldn't go to waste if given to Sabre), the duo soon reaches the edge of the forest once more. Making sure Sabre is standing close enough, Orange then calls down lightning to teleport them home.

 —————————————————————————————————————

Orange smiles and runs to Gerald's pen as the lightning fades, Sabre heading towards the house with the basket filled to the brim with the leftover pastries.

"I'm gonna go put these in the kitchen, then I'll be in my room." Sabre calls out.

"Okay!" Orange answers, letting Gerald out of the pen and petting him. "You can just have the pastries by the way, I don't mind."

"Wait, really?"

"Yep! All yours!"

"Thanks, man!"

Sabre excitedly enters the house, now taking the basket of treats to his room instead. Going up the stairs, he takes a left into a short hall, which has a door with his name on it at the end.

He opens and closes the door quickly, entering his room and setting the basket down on the end of his bed as he walks by it. He stops at the coatrack by the window and takes off his hoodie, and as he places the hood onto the hook he feels Goblin appear from his back and stops somewhere behind him. When he turns around, he sees the small goopy form burying his face into the basket. Sabre laughs as he walks over.

"Hey, I want some too you little jerk!" He chuckles, gently grabbing Goblin's face and shoving him away.

Goblin makes a noise similar to laughing and quickly dashes forward, taking a peach pastry as Sabre sits down on his bed, grabbing a cherry one. Before too long, all of the desserts have been devoured, save for one still at the bottom of the basket.

Sabre and Goblin glance at each other as they both notice.

Then Sabre grabs Goblin's face again and keeps him down as he snatches the last one, laughing.

Goblin slips out easily and begins trying to steal the pastry from him, the two starting a game of keep-away over it. Sabre gets up and paces around the room as he continually blocks Goblin from getting to the sweet treat in his hand.

"Oh come on, you ate like seven of them before I got any! I get this one!"

Goblin replies with his usual noises, this time argumentative in a playful tone.

"I did not and you know it."

More sounds.

"That doesn't apply here!"

They continue this for a while, before Sabre pushes Goblin away just as he was about to bite the pastry one last time, and quickly shoves the pastry into his mouth. He laughs as Goblin looks at him with an exaggerated angry expression.

"Ha, I win!" Sabre says, despite having his mouth full. He swallows his food before continuing. "You almost had me a few times, I gotta admit."

Goblin smiles back and seemingly spouts some nonsense.

"Yeah, and you look like a sock puppet."

That gets Goblin to headbutt Sabre's forehead, but they both still laugh, knowing that this is how they usually mess with each other.

The moment is suddenly interrupted, however, when the door suddenly opens.

"Hey Sa- bre..."

Orange Steve stood there, just staring as for the first time, he saw Sabre without the hoodie. He had a white tank top, but it was overshadowed by many black, obvious veins all over Sabre's skin. Not to mention how he definitely saw Goblin, currently still out, who sat there frozen in shock with his face resembling that of the faces people see in power outlets.

Sabre stared back, his mind blank. He didn't want Orange to ever see this. He was scared it'd be too much. Would he be feared? Chased away? Even if he did realize it wasn't the Darkness that's on him, how is he going to react?

The tension made the air feel still as Sabre took a deep breath, slowly raising his hands.

"...I can explain."