On a warm evening, after a long day of lessons, she rode to the crest of the same hill. The town below seemed smaller somehow, framed by fields and the slow curve of the river. She stopped, felt the horse breathe against her calf, and watched the sun sink in a smear of orange. A kid with a phone tipped his camera toward her, and for a moment everything still and clear: the horse's rising flank, her profile against the sky, the neat set of her shoulders.