Following advice from the Professor, Sabre rested in his room the next day, just in case he needed some recovery time after what Shadow tried to pull.
M would often come by to talk to him, sometimes joined by the Red Leader, and on one occasion the Leader visited Sabre by himself. The conversation was a little awkward, with both of them being nervous (Sabre didn't know what the Leader could be nervous about), but it was still nice.
The morning after, Sabre woke up to M knocking on his door.
"Hey Sabre, good morning!" M calls from the other side.
"Morning, M." Sabre replies, getting out of bed and walking to the door.
"Heads up, you've gotten a few... deliveries this morning." M says, sounding like he was holding back a laugh.
Sabre, now very confused, grasped the doorknob and opened the door.
"What do you mean I-"
Sabre stops mid-sentence as he sees the pile of packages, all neatly wrapped in various shades of red paper. Most of the parcels have letters tucked into their wrapping. The pile is surrounded by multiple vases of roses, ranging from a handful of the flowers to large bouquets decorated with a ribbon wrapped around the vase. M stands to the side, leaning against the wall. Sabre just stands there for a few minutes.
"...You okay?" M asks, chuckling a little at Sabre's bewildered expression.
"Where did all this come from-?" Sabre says, eyes darting from package to package, and switching from looking at the pile to the many bundles of roses.
"The townsfolk have been waiting for a good opportunity to properly welcome you." M explains. "I guess with your shadow gone, they decided to do this as like... a welcome and a celebration? I dunno, I just saw some of the castle attendants placing these here and asked what was going on."
Sabre continues to just stand there.
"You need help moving them all into your room, or...?"
"These- These are all for me?"
"Of course they are, silly! Who else would they be for?" M laughs.
Sabre stumbles over his words for a moment.
"I- Uh- Y-Yes. I'd... like some help moving these." He eventually replies, kneeling down to pick up a few of the packages.
As Sabre goes back inside his room to find a place to put them down, M grabs a few packages and follows. It takes quite a few trips, but they soon move all of the gifts into a spot in Sabre's room. Now, all that's left is the vases of roses.
As Sabre looks around his room for spots to put the two vases he's carrying, M spots the Red Leader approaching as he picks up a vase. The Red Leader walks over.
"Good morning, Amaris." The Leader smiles.
"Morning dad." M smiles back. "I'm just helping Sabre move all the stuff he received from the townsfolk into his room."
"Did he take the surprise well?" The Leader asks.
"Oh, so you asked those attendants to put them all here?"
"Yes, I know that Sabre's still a bit anxious about leaving his room, so I thought he'd appreciate them being here instead of the main entrance. Honestly, the sheer amount of gifts surprised me. I go to check the entrance because I heard a noise, and poof- there's a wall of parcels almost completely blocking off the doors!"
"It was a shock to Sabre, too." M replies, giggling. "It was like when the Assistant gets a computing error."
"Oh, I hope that wasn't a bad reaction..." The Red Leader mumbles.
"Nah, I saw him smiling a few minutes ago. He's still shocked, but he's excited."
"Oh, good."
Sabre then calls out from inside his room.
"Hey M, I found a bunch of good spots for all of the flowers. Can you bring in a few more vases?"
"Sure, just give me one moment." M says, turning around to answer.
When he turns back, the Red Leader has disappeared. M chuckles as he picks up another vase and heads toward Sabre.
"And he wonders where I learned my 'ninja skills' from." He mumbles.
—————————————————————————————————————
With all of the vases put on shelves, on top of the dresser, on the desk, on the nightstand, next to the balcony door, the balcony itself, and a few random spots around the room, Sabre finally sits down in front of the pile of gifts, with M sitting across from him.
"Sooo, which one you gonna open first?" M asks, grinning.
"I... don't know." Sabre answers, looking at all of the wrapped bundles. "This is more gifts than any other times I've gotten a gift combined."
"That's to be expected when an entire kingdom sends you stuff."
"Everybody sent me something-?"
"Well, some are communal gifts from either a household or a neighborhood, I recognize the names signed on them. But yeah, everybody."
"...Why?"
"Hm?"
"Why would they all want to send me something...?" Sabre asks. "I... all I've done is be here for a week. I haven't done anything special. I haven't done anything at all. Why- What reason do they have to just send me stuff?"
M stares blankly for a moment.
"...To be nice?" He replies. "Y'know, like a housewarming greeting. When people welcome a new person by giving them something?"
"...I've never experienced that." Sabre says, staring at the ground.
"You haven't?" M says, surprised. "But you said you had a home back in your old world that you moved to when you were young?"
"It was a communal thing. Not like... a house." Sabre says quietly. He tries to think of a way to explain it, remembering that apartments aren't really a thing in this Realm, so he can't use that as an example on how it worked. "Think of it like... an orphanage, but the kids that move there aren't there to get adopted and just grow up there. Adults could get moved there too, but it was mostly kids."
"...What about when you had a home back with the other colors?" M asks, now looking concerned. "You- You did have a home, right?"
"Yeah, my friend made a house for us to share. We were roommates." Sabre replies, now not as quiet. "Although, it wasn't in a village or some other kind of community. I explained what the Rainbow Hub was to you, right?"
"Wh- the pocket dimension?"
"Yeah, that."
"...Didn't you have absolutely no way to get in or out of there on your own?"
"Well... no. I can't teleport."
"Sabre, please tell me your friend at least made a way for you to escape from the dimension if something happened."
"...I had the portals?"
"The portals... that relied on people needing help to be active."
"Well when you put it like that-"
"Sabre, you were basically trapped in there with no way out that you could get to, and nobody questioned that?" M says. "What if it had been attacked when your friend wasn't there? What if something caused the dimension to collapse? That's obscenely dangerous!"
"I... never really thought of that." Sabre mumbles.
"And they should have." M continues. "Seriously, how could the others be so unacceptably daft... and remember, none of that lack of foresight is your fault, alright?"
"Alright..." Sabre replies.
"Okay. Wow, I went on a tangent there. Sorry about that." M says. "Why don't you go ahead and pick out a gift to open first?"
Sabre smiles again, and scans the pile for anything that sticks out. He notices a package with two letters tucked under the string holding the wrapping together, one neat with a wax symbol keeping it shut and another that's clearly much less neat with what looks to be crayon scribble on it. He picks up the package and opens the neater letter. It reads:
Hello there, and welcome to the kingdom pal. Hope it's much better than whatever bull you went through in the rest of the Realm. You've already met my son Ruby (hope he didn't give you trouble by the way), and I'm the instructor at the Elite Academy nearby. Noticed your satchel was a bit worse for wear, so I thought you'd enjoy this one.
- Cerise
Sabre then opened the second letter, which was in a child's handwriting. There's a scribbled drawing of a familiar-looking child waving under the message.
Hi again mister! My dad says you're here to stay and that's really cool! I hope you like it here!
From Ruby
Sabre places the letters to the side and picks up the package, carefully untying the string and taking off the red paper. Inside is a very nice leather satchel, bigger than the one he already has. The leather is a bit of a darker color, and the satchel's front is imprinted with the design of the Red Kingdom's emblem. Sabre looks at it, in awe of the nice gift.
"Woah, that's cool!" M says, smiling. "Cerise usually gives those kinds of satchels to Academy graduates."
"This is such a beautiful satchel..." Sabre mutters. "And he just-"
"Say anything self-deprecating and I will get a spray bottle." M laughs.
Sabre goes through the mound of gifts throughout the day, eventually stopping in the afternoon, the pile only halfway gone through. It was mostly due to Sabre stopping to admire what he received, but the amount definitely contributed.
The gifts from individuals were smaller, like a beekeeper sending him some nice candles, a baker sending him sugar cookies, the florist (who said in his letter that everybody that sent flowers got them from his shop) sending him a book, a few nice sweaters and cardigans from various people, and the crafts store owner sending him a few sketchbooks. The communal gifts had something bigger, like a tea set from a family of herbalists and a beautiful ornate box from a pair of carpenter brothers. All of their letters were welcoming and kind, all wishing him well on his stay in the kingdom.
M eventually had to leave to do an errand (he didn't tell Sabre what), which left Sabre to have fun finding places to put his new items. With all of this, he might not have to go into town to pick out decorations or anything after all.
Perhaps a visit to town is in order... and it'll be another step towards overcoming his anxiety.