Before we start, once again there's fanart :3

Thank you to TarryVision/SmileSheepy, who made this absolutely epic angsty art of Sabre >:3

I also Gacha'd the trauma bean lol

Anyway, enjoy :>

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Sabre carefully opened his door, and peered around the hall for any people. No one was around.

It was very early in the morning, the sun just barely starting to peek over the horizon, and Sabre finally gathered the courage to leave his room on his own. It had now been five days since M had brought him into the Red Kingdom, and at the Professor's lab, they were getting closer to being able to get rid of Shadow.

The procedure was supposed to be the next day, but already the anticipation and slight worry was keeping him awake. He couldn't get back to sleep after waking up randomly, so he decided that instead of either trying in vain to fall asleep again or wait for M to come by, he was going to explore his new home a little bit.

Sketchbook in hand, Sabre stepped out and started walking down the hall, looking for somewhere quiet and secluded to relax in. It was a castle, so there must be a nice little library, perhaps. Or rather...

Remembering a place he saw while M was leading him through the castle during his first day while on the way to the Professor's, Sabre followed the path M had taken then and soon arrived.

The large window that showed a view of a beautiful rose garden.

Peering inside, he noticed the door to the garden on the side of the room. He quickly found the entrance to the hall leading there, and stopped in front of a glass door framed in what looked to be gold. The door's handle, also gold, was in the shaped of a rose.

Sabre almost went to open the door, but stopped just as he was about to touch the handle. Was he even allowed to be in the garden? What if he wasn't supposed to go inside and angered the Red Leader? What if that's someone else's space already? Did-

"Oh, good morning Sabre."

Sabre jolted and turned around as he heard a familiar voice. Standing there was the Red Leader.

"Oh, apologies. I didn't mean to scare you again." The Red Leader says, giving Sabre a small, friendly smile. "I wasn't expecting you to be up so early."

"I-It's fine, you just snuck up on me is all." Sabre says quietly. "I couldn't get back to sleep, s-so I... decided to explore a bit."

The Red Leader glances into the rose garden through the glass door. He looks back at Sabre with a kind expression.

"Do you want to go into the garden?" He asks. "It's alright, it's a place for any resident of the castle to go in."

"Oh, uh, y-yes actually. Thank you."

The Red Leader then pulls a small gold key out of his pocket, handing it to Sabre. The bow of the key was shaped like a rose, matching the door.

"Here, this unlocks the door." The Red Leader says. "It's still locked at the moment for security reasons, the roses in there are sort of precious to the castle."

"They are?" Sabre asks.

"Mhm. They were planted in the first Red Kingdom by my ancestor, the first king, and we brought them here once the kingdom moved. Every king has cared for these roses during their reign."

"Wow... that's amazing."

"Heh, I guess it is."

The Red Leader starts to walk away, and Sabre turns around and calls out to him.

"Uh, w-wait, aren't you gonna want the key back?" Sabre asks.

The Red Leader looks back, smiling softly.

"You can have it, I don't really go in there very often. Just once a week." He says. "Besides, I have copies if I need them. Have fun in there, Sabre."

The Red Leader walks away, leaving Sabre a bit confused.

After a minute, Sabre turns and unlocks the door to the garden. As he steps inside, the strong scent of roses almost overwhelms him at first, but after a few seconds it's pleasant and calming. The roses surround the circular room, the light from the lanterns inside giving it a warm glow as the darker sky highlighted by the rising sun is visible from the glass ceiling above. The roses that cover the perimeter are large and clearly well taken care of, while four smaller rose bushes in little sectioned areas make four corners in the center of the room. The path laid over soft, bright grass is made of lighter red brick outlined by grey brick, the center with the smaller bushes making a patterned square with a small fountain in the middle. At the very back of the room, there's a bench made of wood framed in metal. A few roses wrap around the bench's back legs.

Sabre walks down the path to the bench, and sits down. He opens his sketchbook and takes his pencil from a little nook in the spine, and starts to draw.

It's mostly just doodles of things he thinks of or things he saw around the Red Kingdom. The page is soon filled with small sketches of roses, the view from his balcony, the small ceramic chicken he now keeps on his nightstand, a few of the shops he saw in the town, and there's even a few sketches of M and other people he's met, like the Professor with his computer or Ruby with his usual playful grin. A small doodle of a crown he did on a whim reminds Sabre of his earlier interaction with the Red Leader, and he continues to wonder why he did that.

Before he knows it, there's no more room on the pages. Sabre flips to the next page, now wanting to draw an actual piece. He thinks for a little while on what to draw. He racks his brain looking for an idea, when he remembers something.

There was a flower garden like this back at the first Hub, with a particular flower that he and Rainbow had liked. Rainbow had planted only a few flowers at first, just for decoration, but upon seeing how much Sabre liked them he planted more. The memory of that one flower has still stuck with him, even after...

...Right. He moved it there... he's sure that Rainbow would have loved knowing that Sabre had planted their favorite flower right next to him.

Sabre began sketching the flower, then moved onto the details when he was happy with it. He didn't realize how much time has gone by until he heard someone walk into the garden. Sabre looked up from his sketchbook to see M approaching him.

"Sabre, there you are! I've been looking for you." M smiles brightly. "Glad to see you going to other places in the castle."

"Thanks, M." Sabre smiles back. "I figured I might as well try."

"And you're doing great."

M then notices the sketchbook.

"Whatcha drawing?" He asks, sitting down next to Sabre on the bench.

Sabre tilts his sketchbook so M could see the art better.

"Oh, it's a flower from a garden that me and my friend had at our old home." Sabre explains. "We both loved it. It was our favorite."

"Oh, it looks nice!" M says, looking at the drawing closer. "...You're talking about your friend the Third Hero, right?"

"Yeah... I really miss him." Sabre sighs. "I think he was the only one that actually tried to understand me. Sure, I had a bunch of friends after a while of being in this world, but no one other than him would ask about where I'm from or how my people worked."

"Oh... I'm sorry, Sabre."

"Ah, don't be. You weren't part of that crowd."

Sabre goes back to drawing for a moment, while M looks at the roses around them. After a while, M turns back to Sabre.

"Hey, Sabre? It's okay if you don't want to answer, but I'm just a little concerned..." M asks. "You said that the others kept you prisoner for weeks, right? How come you didn't try to escape sooner? You seemed mostly okay when I found you."

Sabre stops, and after a minute, closes his sketchbook and looks at M. He takes a deep breath before answering.

"That... that was after a long time of recovering." Sabre replies.

"Recovering?" M says with a worried tone. "From what?"

"Well..."

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He lay there on the floor or the cell, too weak to just sit up. It felt like the room was spinning.

He didn't expect breaking free of Shadow's control to be so taxing on his energy, but the fact that something was obviously wrong must have had something to do with his current condition. He was so tired, only able to keep his eyes half open under the blindfold, but he was kept awake by the overheating and dizziness. It wouldn't end.

He closed his eyes, and it only seemed like a second had passed before there were suddenly two people talking in front of his cell. He could barely understand what they were saying.

He tried to roll to lay on his other side, but couldn't muster the strength to just move. All he managed was a shudder. It was like all of his limbs were being weighed down by some invisible force, preventing him from any motion at all. He knows this feeling will fade, and it'll come back as well, possibly worse. Just has it had been. The still untreated wound on his neck didn't help, it feeling as if it was throbbing in pain. Something must have happened to it, but he couldn't see or try to understand what.

Letting himself just lay there in the dry dirt, he stopped focusing on trying to move and instead tried to fall asleep. How long had he been in that cell? It was all a half-conscious blur after the guards in white armor had dragged him away. He barely remembered sometimes being woken up by a guard checking on him, or someone pushing a plate with a bit of food and water through a small trapdoor that opened on their side. To him, one moment it was the middle of the night, and when he opened his eyes again it was suddenly late afternoon with the sunlight beaming in his face.

As he continued to try to sleep, the voices of the two people in front of the cell became clearer. It was Light and the Violet Leader.

"And he's been like that since...?"

"Since two of the Colorless Guards found him near the portals. They brought him to me and I told them to keep him here."

"Good call, since it's likely another one of  the Shadow's tricks."

"Leader, there's some doubt among the people if it's actually the Shadow or not."

"Why? Everyone has seen him try making himself look more like Sabre to make us lower our guard. That in combination with how he'd pretend to be Sabre while seeming injured, we've lost quite a few good people to his tactics."

"Well, they think that if it was the Shadow, he would've given up the ruse days ago and broken out. He's just been lying there for almost a week."

"Has anyone tried checking his condition?"

"No, but the Green Steves here have assumptions that he's possibly ill, and have noticed that the wound on his neck is infected. Should I ask one of them to-"

"No, we can't risk one of them being corrupted. The Shadow might be trying to wait it out."

"Alright. A few have also been theorizing that Void has discarded him, given that before this, nobody had sighted him in weeks. It'd make sense if he really is ill, as Void has gotten rid of corrupted people whose health declined before."

"Yes, it would, but we still can't afford to take the chance of losing anyone right now. Just keep an eye on him for now. If he starts gaining strength again, we could see if we can get some information about Void and his plans."

"Yes, sir."

They walk away.

He finally starts to slip away into unconsciousness, his surroundings fading as he drifted off.

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"Wait wait wait- So you were extremely sick and they didn't do anything about it?!" M asks, his eyes wide.

"Nope. From what I overheard, it sounded like Shadow had pretended to be me a few times, which is why they didn't think it was actually me." Sabre replies, holding his now closed sketchbook in his hands. "I have no idea how long I was actually in there, but it took me over a week just to recover enough to sit up. I think that since my wound was untreated since Void used it to corrupt me, something got in it and made me really sick. That, or the Darkness had something to do with it and the infected wound was just another thing on top of it. Something probably can't be forced into someone's blood without repercussions."

"That's awful! Are you sure you're okay now?" M asks worriedly.

"Don't worry, by the time you found me, I had already recovered from the illness and had used the opportunity to escape from there. I was just a little bruised from them trying to catch me while I was running away."

"Alright... I can't believe they would do something like that."

"I couldn't either, until they..."

Sabre trails off, staring forward. M just watches him for a bit as he waits for a response.

"...Sabre?"

"S-Sorry, uh..."

"Did they do worse?"

Sabre lowers his head.

"...Yeah."

M and Sabre sit in silence for a moment. M then offers Sabre a hug, and Sabre accepts.

"You're one of the strongest people I know, surviving what you did." M comforts him. "And you starting to open up about it is wonderful. It shows that you're healing from whatever they've done to you."

Sabre lets go, and M places a hand on his shoulder as they separate.

"I'm proud of you, you know that?" He says with a kind smile.

"...Thanks, M." Sabre says, smiling back.

M then gets up, Sabre following.

"Now, since you're out, you want me to show you around the castle a bit more?" M asks. "We could probably get some snacks from the kitchen while we're over there."

"That sounds nice." Sabre grins.

M leads Sabre out of the garden, and they close the door behind them. As he follows M down the hall, Sabre fiddles with the gold key the Red Leader had given him in his pocket. He doesn't quite get why he gave it to him, but... it was nice.

Maybe he wasn't so scary after all.

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The Professor prepared things for the next day's procedure, as he talked to the Red Leader.

He has finally figured out which method would have the highest chance of success, and wanted to make sure everything would go according to plan when the time came. So, he ran around the room, making sure mechanical parts were in place and a few potions and serums were handy just in case something happened.

"And just in case the shadow he has tries to harm Sabre during separation, I have measurements against that so it doesn't even get the chance." The Professor rambles. "And Amaris will very likely be nearby for support just like he has been for every test because Sabre trusts him the most, so you'll likely be made to tag along since... Carmine, are you even listening?"

The Professor stops checking on equipment for a moment to look at the Red Leader, who's lost in thought.

"Carmine?? CARMINE!"

"Oh- what is it, Goggles?" He replies, finally looking up.

"What are you so distracted about? Have you been listening to what I've been saying for the past-" Professor Red quickly glance at the clock on the wall. "Ten minutes?"

The Red Leader sighs, running a hand through his hair.

"Goggles, do you think I've been doing something wrong-?" He asks. "I've been trying to be friendly to him, but at the same time not push it, but he still seems scared of me."

"Well, you can't really blame him considering what he's been put through." The Professor says, putting a potion on a nearby counter. "Not only was he taken from his own world, but everything he had ever known about everything here left him behind because of Void's actions. And remember, he had gone through so much at the hands of other Leaders."

"I know, I know. Don't think I've forgotten." The Red Leader replies. "You and Amaris have been telling him that I won't treat him like the other Leaders did, and I'm trying to be as non-threatening to him as possible, but I don't know exactly... how."

"You always have been awkward around new people." The Professor chuckles. "Remember the joke Sharp used to make about you keeping the kingdom hidden because you-"

"Oh, shut it. You don't care about keeping an image because you've lost your mind."

"I might be crazy, but I am free!"

The Professor laughs while the Red Leader facepalms. After a minute, the Professor calms down and turns to the Leader.

"So, what have you been doing so far then?" He asks.

"Well... I've been trying to give him space since he's been so anxious." The Red Leader says.

"Good start."

"...But I accidentally keep scaring him. I kind of opened his door without knocking because I'm used to just Amaris hanging out in the spare room-"

"Stupid."

"Well, I know it was stupid now!"

"Alright, alright. What else?"

"I've mostly just been staying a bit far because of how scared he seems. I did leave a few more storybooks from the library at his door for him, since I saw Amaris bringing him one and he seems to like them. And I gave him a key to the rose garden this morning since he wanted to go inside."

"That's better."

"...Do you think I've still been messing up by just keeping away? Or is there something else I'm supposed to be doing?"

"Well, you should still give him space, but he's not getting the chance to know you if you're constantly just standing in the corner." The Professor starts. "Since it sounds like he's getting out of his room more, you could try starting conversations with him in other rooms and just keep out of his room. And during tests here, you could join in the conversation instead of just watching. That's how I've gotten him to open up to me."

The Professor returns to organizing materials for tomorrow's procedure.

"Most importantly though, let him come to you when he's ready. It's gonna take him a bit longer to warm up to you, but if you just let him take the steps on his own he'll learn that you mean no harm soon enough. Offer a hand, and let him be the one to decide to take it."

"...Thanks, Goggles." The Red Leader says. "I just- I don't really know what to do. I want him to feel welcome here, and I don't need to be frightening him when he's trying to adjust."

"Maybe you two could connect through the fact you both have social anxiety."

"Hey!"