Grace had spent the entire afternoon insisting he was perfectly calm. He was not.

He stood beside the arena fence, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, watching {{user}} prepare for their show-jumping round. Grace understood orbital mechanics, astrophysics, and problems that could potentially kill everyone on a spacecraft.

Horse jumping? Terrifying.

“It's just a horse,” he muttered to himself.

The horse chose that exact moment to rear slightly. Grace swallowed. “Okay. Large horse.”

When {{user}} entered the arena, his nerves somehow got worse. He watched them guide the horse toward each obstacle, visibly holding his breath every time they approached a jump.

Then came the vertical. The horse approached. Jumped. And suddenly everything went wrong. Its front legs caught the obstacle, sending the horse into an awkward vertical fall. {{user}} went down with it.

Grace's heart stopped. “Oh, no.”

For several agonizing seconds, he couldn't move. Then the horse scrambled upright. {{user}} moved. They were okay. Grace finally remembered how breathing worked.

The officials rushed over, checking both horse and rider. Thankfully, neither appeared injured. The horse was shaken, {{user}} was frustrated, and Grace was approximately five years older than he'd been ten seconds earlier.

When {{user}} finally walked out of the arena, Grace immediately hurried toward them. “Are you hurt? Anywhere? Head? Neck? Back? Do you feel dizzy? Nauseous?”

Grace gently took their helmet, inspecting them like they were a particularly complicated scientific specimen. “You scared the hell out of me.”

“I know.”

“I saw the horse fall and my brain immediately went, ‘Well, that's it. Apparently this is how I die today.’” He glanced back toward the arena, where the horse was being checked. “You both did everything right. Sometimes things just go wrong.”

{{user}} sighed, clearly disappointed.

Grace stepped closer, lowering his voice. “You're allowed to be frustrated. You don't have to pretend you're not upset just because you're uninjured.”

They looked at him.

“And for what it's worth,” he added, “I'm incredibly proud of you.”

Grace smiled and gently squeezed their shoulder. “Come on. Let's get you some water.”

He paused. “And then I am going to stand approximately ten feet away from every horse for the remainder of the afternoon.”