Horse Eden : Varina x Avenoir

Elara | Lounge / Riders’ Quarters | Sawyer

Elara stared at his hand.

For several seconds, she simply stared at it, because there was truly something remarkable about the fact Sawyer Tenneck could look as though he had been dragged backward through every illness known to man and still somehow attempt to turn the situation into a negotiation. He was standing because of stubbornness more than strength, swaying just enough that the gesture lost any shred of authority it might have possessed, fever burning high across his face while his damp hair clung messily near his temples. And yet there he was, hand extended, asking for a deal as if they were standing in an office discussing competition entries rather than in a darkened staff lounge where she had found him unconscious beside a cup of cold tea. Elara looked from his hand to his face slowly, her expression tightening in a way that was not quite anger and not quite concern, because concern felt too exposed and anger was easier to wear. “No,” she said eventually, very calmly. “Absolutely not.”

She stepped closer before he could argue, reaching for his arm when he shifted too far into his own imbalance. “You are not shaking hands with me while you look like you might lose a fight with the floor,” she continued, her voice low and sharp enough to cut through whatever feverish determination he had gathered. “And you are certainly not making deals about tomorrow when you can barely survive tonight.” The heat coming off him through his sleeve was alarming, and she hated how immediately her body registered it, how quickly the sarcasm thinned beneath something more serious. She had been annoyed all day. Annoyed with paperwork, annoyed with Felix, annoyed with herself for noticing Isbel’s coffee and Sawyer’s tremor and every stupid little thing she should not have cared about. But now, standing this close to him while he tried to hold himself upright on pride alone, the annoyance had nowhere useful to go. “Sit down,” she said, though her hand remained steady at his arm. “Before you make this more dramatic than it already is.”

He did not look as though he wanted to sit down, which was unfortunate for him, because Elara was no longer interested in what he wanted. She guided him back toward the chair with the same practical firmness she had seen grooms use on expensive young horses who had convinced themselves they were being murdered by a mounting block. Not cruelly. Not gently either. Just with enough certainty to make the decision for him. Once he was seated, she moved around the table quickly, gathering his phone, the notes still half-trapped beneath his arm, and the abandoned tea that had apparently served as his very tragic attempt at medical care. She carried the cup toward the sink, glanced into it, and made a faint sound of disgust. “This is what you were relying on? Cold leaf water and determination?” she muttered, setting it aside. “Wonderful. Very professional.”

For one brief moment, she considered going to find Felix to help get him out of here. It would have been sensible. Felix would arrange the room, call the Hansens, handle whatever farm chores Sawyer was apparently prepared to die for, and remove Elara from the immediate problem before she did something humiliating like care too openly. But then she glanced back and saw Sawyer sitting there, feverish and rigid and embarrassed, and the thought died almost immediately. There was something about the way he held himself that made her understand, with irritating clarity, that involving more people too quickly would only make him feel cornered. He had already spoken as though needing help might cost him everything. Dragging half the staff in to witness it would not make him more reasonable. It would make him worse. And Elara, despite what people often assumed, was not stupid.

So she took a breath, picked up his jacket from the back of the chair, and gave him a look that left very little room for discussion. “Felix mentioned there is a spare room in the riders’ quarters. It is close enough that even you, in your current state of tragic collapse, might survive the journey.” She held the jacket out. “I am taking you there. Myself. Before you start protesting, understand that this is not kindness. This is damage control. If you die in the staff lounge, the paperwork will be unbearable, and Felix already thinks my formatting is too emotional.”

Getting him upright again was worse than she expected.

He tried, of course he did, because apparently Sawyer viewed assistance as something to be negotiated with rather than accepted. He pushed himself up with an expression of grim focus, then immediately went still in that awful way people did when the room shifted beneath them. Elara was already close enough to catch the change. She stepped into his side, drawing his arm across her shoulders before he could object properly, one hand firm around his wrist and the other braced at his back. He was heavier than she would have liked, warmer than he should have been, and too tall for the arrangement to be graceful in any way. “This is ridiculous,” she informed him, mostly because silence would have made her sound worried. “You are built very inconveniently for someone who has decided to become portable.”

The walk out of the lounge was slow, awkward, and deeply irritating in the way all frightening things became irritating when Elara refused to admit they were frightening. The corridor beyond had quieted into the late-evening rhythm of the yard, with distant voices carrying from the wash bays and the dull clatter of buckets somewhere near the feed room. Most people had gone or were finishing the last of their work, which was a mercy. Elara kept her chin lifted anyway, daring anyone to look too long. One groom passing near the tack room glanced toward them, clocked Sawyer’s condition, then wisely became fascinated by a bridle hanging on the wall. Sensible boy. She appreciated survival instincts in staff.

Outside, the covered walkway was colder than she expected. Fine rain drifted beneath the yard lights, turning the stone slick and silver while the dark shapes of the barns rose around them. Sawyer shivered hard beside her, and Elara tightened her grip without acknowledging it aloud. He had intended to go back to the Hansens’ farm like this. To bike there. To do chores. To bring his horses across later, perhaps, if the fever had not finally dragged him under. The thought made anger flare bright and sudden in her chest, not elegant anger, not the polished sort she could turn into a joke, but something sharp and frightened. She swallowed it down. “If you ever attempt to ride that bicycle while half-dead,” she said, voice controlled, “I will throw it into Tallulah’s stall and let her finish what nature started.”

The riders’ quarters were in one of the converted buildings near the offices, not far enough to justify how long the walk felt. Elara had to fight with the door for a moment, swearing softly in German when the handle stuck, before it opened into a narrow hall that smelled faintly of clean laundry, old wood, and radiator heat. The room Felix had meant was plain and already warm, with a narrow bed against the wall, a small desk, a wardrobe, a chair, and not much else. It looked less like somewhere a person lived and more like somewhere spare furniture went to think about its choices. Still, it had a bed, which placed it far above the staff lounge in terms of medical dignity.

“Well,” Elara said as she helped him inside, “it is ugly, but you are no longer unconscious in public. Progress.”

She guided him to the bed and waited until he was seated before releasing him, though she did so reluctantly, watching him for a second longer than necessary to make sure he did not tip sideways. Then she turned away too quickly, busying herself with his things because movement was safer than looking at him. His phone went on the desk. His notes beside it. His jacket over the chair. She found a glass near the small sink and filled it with water, then searched the little cupboard near the door until she located a blanket, a thermometer, tissues, and several medication boxes labelled in German. She stared at them for a moment, unimpressed. “Excellent,” she murmured. “A pharmaceutical guessing game. Very reassuring.”

She brought the water over first. “Drink,” she said, holding it out. “Slowly. And do not look heroic about it. It’s water, not a moral test.”

The thermometer came next. She held it between two fingers and lifted her brow at him. “Open your mouth.” A pause. “And before you make this difficult, remember I have already physically relocated you once today and I am not above threatening you with Clara.” She waited, took the reading, then frowned despite herself when she saw the result. It was not catastrophic, but it was high enough to make her stomach tighten. She set the thermometer down on the desk and pulled out her phone, sending Felix a quick message that Sawyer was in the riders’ quarters safe, and checking that the Hansens had beeb told he was not returning that evening, and someone had to bring proper medication and food before their new rider attempted to recover through resentment alone.

Only when the message was sent did the room become quiet enough for everything else to settle.

Elara stood near the desk, arms folded, looking at him properly now. Without the barn, without the horses, without the careful precision he wore like armor, he seemed painfully human. Feverish. Exhausted. Young in a way she had not expected. It reminded her, unhelpfully, of the night before. Of the rain outside the inn, his voice lower when he said people tended to lose their heads around her, like the admission cost him more than the insult had. She had been offended then. She still was, somewhere. But the offense had softened around the edges in the face of this, and that annoyed her most of all.

“You were right earlier,” she said finally, the words slower than usual. “I don’t understand exactly what it feels like to be one wrong move away from losing everything.”

She looked away briefly, then back at him.

“But you are wrong if you think this helps.” Her voice steadied, less sharp now but still firm. “Working until you collapse does not make you look irreplaceable. It makes you look reckless. Falkenried notices that sort of thing. Felix notices everything. Clara notices what Felix pretends not to. And unfortunately, I notice things too.”

She exhaled, softer than before.

“My father recommended you because you’re good. Felix brought you here because he believes you’re useful. The Hansens clearly trust you enough to keep you at their farm.” Her mouth curved faintly, though the worry stayed beneath it. “And I just dragged you across the yard because apparently you cannot be left unattended without turning basic illness into a career crisis. None of that sounds like people waiting for you to fail.”

Another silence followed, less uncomfortable than the one before but heavier somehow. Elara glanced toward the window, where rain tapped faintly against the glass, then lowered herself into the chair by the desk as though the decision had been purely practical.

“I’m staying until Felix brings medicine,” she said. “Not because I’m worried. Obviously. I simply don’t trust you not to attempt a tragic escape through the window.”

Her gaze returned to him, quieter now.

“And tomorrow,” she added, “we will see. Not tonight. Tonight you drink water, take whatever Felix gives you, and sleep somewhere that is not a table.” A faint pause. “Consider it one of those difficult concepts you’ve been experimenting with lately.”

Elara looked at him for a moment longer than was probably polite.

Not because she meant to. Not because she had suddenly forgotten how to behave around a shirtless man, though admittedly Sawyer Tenneck standing damp-haired and feverish in the doorway wearing only sweatpants was not exactly the sort of situation most etiquette lessons prepared a girl for. Her gaze had gone to his face first, because she was civilised, and because the embarrassment there was so plainly visible beneath the fever that it caught her before anything else could. Then, naturally, she noticed the rest of him, because she had eyes and he had apparently chosen to re-enter the room looking like a tragic equestrian calendar no one had asked for. But what held her attention was not the muscle or the water still dripping from his hair. It was the scar. Large, raised, too fresh-looking to belong to some distant childhood accident, cutting across the thick line of his upper back toward his shoulder blade in a way that made something in her expression shift before she could stop it.

She did not ask.

Elara von Hohenfels asked questions constantly, usually when she was not supposed to, usually because people were more interesting when forced to answer things they had been avoiding. But even she knew there were moments curiosity became unkind. Sawyer looked embarrassed enough already, standing there half-frozen and shaking violently while trying to make a joke of what was clearly an awful, humiliating evening for him. She could tease him. She could even boss him around. But she would not make him explain a wound while he was feverish and shirtless in a room he had not chosen to need.

So instead her mouth softened faintly.

“Well,” she said after a beat, tone light enough to be gentle without making a production of it, “in your defence, it was probably a very aggressive sweater.”

She crossed the room and reached for the blanket folded at the end of the bed, shaking it open with brisk purpose. If her movements were a little too quick, that was nobody’s business. If she needed something to do with her hands before they betrayed the concern sitting warm and uncomfortable beneath her ribs, that was also nobody’s business. “Sit down before the sweatpants realise you’re vulnerable and launch a second attack.”

Her voice had found its usual rhythm again, playful and dry, but she watched carefully as he moved, ready to step in if the floor decided to become a problem for him. Once he sat, she came closer and draped the blanket around his shoulders herself. Not fussing, exactly. Fussing was what people did when they wanted credit for care. Elara did not want credit. She wanted him warmer, covered, and preferably no longer standing in the doorway looking like pride was the only thing preventing him from sliding down the frame.

Her fingers brushed briefly near his shoulder as she tucked the blanket more securely around him, close enough to the edge of that scar to make her aware of it again. She paused only for the smallest second, then withdrew as though she had simply finished arranging the fabric.

“You’re freezing,” she said, quieter now. “Which is impressive, considering you’re also burning alive. Very committed to contradiction.”

She turned away before that sounded too much like worry and picked up the glass of water from the desk. Holding it out, she lifted one eyebrow.

“Drink. Slowly. And don’t look at me like hydration is a personal insult.”

The room felt smaller now than it had before he went into the bathroom. The radiator clicked beneath the window, rain tapped lightly against the glass, and somewhere beyond the walls Falkenried continued on without them, horses settling, staff moving through the last quiet motions of the day. Elara stood between the desk and the bed, coat still damp at the hem from escorting him across the yard, hair slightly loosened from the rain, trying very hard to look like this was all perfectly manageable.

It mostly was.

Except for the fact he looked so completely unlike the man who had stood by the duck pond earlier and made teasing remarks about her enjoying his company. Except for the fact she could still hear his voice from the night before, low and careful, saying people tended to lose their heads around her. Except for the fact he had been right in the covered walkway when he mumbled that she was fond of him, and she had not denied it quickly enough to save either of them.

Her phone buzzed against the desk, mercifully interrupting the thought.

Felix.

Elara glanced at the message, reading quickly. The Hansens had been called. His horses were fed. His chores were handled. Medication would be brought over shortly. Clara had been informed, which meant soup was apparently already being organised with the kind of grim efficiency Falkenried applied to both illness and stallion collections.

She looked back at Sawyer.

“The Hansens know,” she said, before he could start worrying himself upright again. “Your horses are fed. Your chores are handled. Felix is bringing medicine, and Clara is sending soup, because apparently your dramatic lounge collapse has become a facility-wide administrative project.”

A faint smile touched her mouth, warmer this time.

“No one is angry,” she added, softer, because she suspected that was the part he would not believe unless someone said it plainly. “No one thinks you failed. No one is replacing you because you got sick, Sawyer.”

She leaned back lightly against the desk, arms folding loosely over her chest. There was still amusement in her expression, but less armour now. Less bite.

“You did enough today. More than enough. You rode. You wrote notes. You were disturbingly responsible, even while apparently collecting symptoms like trophies.” Her eyes narrowed faintly, though not unkindly. “Then you ruined it slightly by deciding the staff lounge table was an acceptable place to die quietly.”

A pause.

“And for what it’s worth, I don’t think anyone here mistakes being ill for being useless.” Her voice stayed steady, but there was something gentler beneath it now. “Except perhaps you.”

She let that sit for a moment, then pushed herself away from the desk and picked up the thermometer.

“Now,” she said, regaining a touch of brightness because sincerity held too long made her skin itch, “temperature. Then water. Then bed. In that order. Very simple. Even you can manage it.”

Her gaze flicked briefly toward the bathroom, where the defeated sweater presumably remained in damp disgrace.

“And tomorrow we can discuss your rematch with the knitwear.” A small smile. “I imagine it will require patience, groundwork, and a more sympathetic training approach.”

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