Riana's Adventures
Dec. 7th, 2025 11:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aliyn_ravenShort sketches from the lives of a variety of people through the eyes of an ironic lady.
Story-8. Solitude is a hero's reward
Riana drove a rented van through the streets of a suburb in a large southern city. The area was undergoing redevelopment, and homeowners, before trading in their properties for new homes or cash, were clearing out the piles of junk from attics, garden sheds, and garages that had accumulated there since the Roaring Twenties. Garage sales themselves were few, as the residents were mostly renters and had no heritage from previous eras, but Riana still made several good purchases during the week she spent in a small hotel near the suburb.
A young man was selling junk outside one of the houses. Riana was surprised: usually, garage sales were run by homeowners' teenage children or retired parents—people who had the time. Occasionally, there were remote workers, easily identifiable by their laptops; even rarer were housewives and disabled people. But a robust man in his mid-thirties holding only a phone?
Intrigued, Riana stopped the car, shielded her head from the scorching (even in mid-autumn!) southern sun with a half-hat she'd bought the day before at a yard sale and successfully restored to working order, and walked over to inspect the merchandise. And then Riana was even more surprised: all the items were brand new. They had been purchased with a taste and sense of style that was a bit quirky for this suburban setting, and indeed the South in general, but quite elegant. These items should have been stunning additions to the home, but they weren't fit for an antique store. It's surprising the guy didn't donate all of it to charity auctions—there's no other way to sell new secondhand clothes; it's easier to throw them away.
There was an interesting story behind it, and Riana didn't want to miss it.
She picked up a painted flower bowl and said to the guy, "Perfect for a Filipino or Caribbean-style ikebana. Did you make this yourself? You have talent!"
"No!" the guy said gloomily. "My wife bought it."
"And she's really willing to sell it?"
"Now it's none of her business what I sell or how!"
Riana smiled slightly. Using the term 'wife' instead of 'my ex', and selling things instead of throwing them away—that guy isn't ready to start a new, more successful life. He's probably also preventing his ex from doing the same. He'll end up with a restraining order and a ruined reputation, which will affect his career too. People are incorrigible in their desire to make decisions based on their lower hemispheres rather than their upper ones.
And Riana said, "Everything has its perks. You can look at your phone over breakfast, and no one grumbles. And even more so, no one yells if you spent the evening at the gym or taking advantage of lucrative overtime instead of family dinner. And casual sex has gone from being a betrayal to a lucky break."
"I wasn't fooling around!" the guy flared. "I'm a Rescue Services agent! But my wife said she was tired of being a married miss and left."
"And she gave you a luxurious gift."
The guy was about to protest, but Riana forestalled him:
"I'm sure all the men and women in your department are single or divorced. A hero must be alone or with his brethren heroes, but not with a wife or husband. You're alone again, and that's your strength. That's your luck. You can live the way you want."
"And come home to an empty house without food!"
Riana placed the vase on the table, then picked up a framed, embroidered picture. Although it was machine-made, the design was original and unique. Quite talented, too! Riana glanced at the guy.
"In the knightly Orders, knights shared a cell with a confrere, or at least four. Rent an apartment with your colleagues. When you come home, you'll find friends and a gaming console waiting for you, and you won't notice the dark windows or the microwave heating up food. And there won't be any annoying women around to ruin your evening with nagging." She placed the painting on the table and pointed to it and the vase. The shop might be a Victorian boutique, but a corner displaying contemporary art would add a touch of flair and novelty. "I'll buy it if you tell me the name of the shop or studio where it was purchased."
"What?" The guy was confused. "I don't know!"
"Too bad. I'll be here tomorrow, and if you gather information about the item, I'll take it."
"How can I find out?" The guy was puzzled.
"Send photos of these things to your ex and ask. If she blocked you, you need to search for them using image search engines."
"That bitch forbade me from seeing my son!" the guy suddenly yelled. "I can only see my children in the presence of a social worker! And only after taking a young father's course."
"'Children' or 'son'?" Riana smiled. "But all of this is a good opportunity to consider whether you even want children. Parenting is a lot of hard, responsible work, and few people really want it. You have the chance to distance yourself from parenthood forever. Child support is a cheap way to pay for paternity by mistake."
"My daughter is only a year and a half old. And my son is three; he's already starting to understand everything. He needs a father! A man!"
"It's an ideal time for fatherhood classes, isn't it?" asked Riana.
"Women have always looked after children!" the guy protested. "They taught them to honour their father! And this one... She told the judge that I was a danger to the children because I didn't know where the kindergarten or hospital was. I didn't know how to buy clothes for them, cook food or bathe or put them to bed. I didn't write a single line in the baby books, and she was alone organising parties for their first tooth and first steps! My lawyer got me the opportunity to 'learn how to be a father'. But even he couldn't secure me equal custody of my son. Of the children."
"When the kids are older and want an adult friend, they'll come to you themselves," Riana replied. "It's easier to be an older friend than a father. You only meet on Sundays when there's no homework or other commitments. All you have to do is make sure that your younger friends don't use harmful substances or access unhealthy websites. And find some healthy entertainment for them."
"Women always waited for their husbands!" The guy continued to resent. "Whenever my husband came home, his wife would greet him with a hot meal in a clean house. And now girls say, 'It's better for us to just be friends,' as soon as they hear what I do for a living... I met Sunarti during the flood... I brought her here and married her! As soon as the year after she received her citizenship had passed, she said that she wanted to formalise her status as a de facto single mother!"
"Women never waited for their husbands," Riana chuckled. "On the contrary, as soon as their husbands returned from military campaigns and trade caravans, their wives tried to send them back. Only then could women decide for themselves how to plough and sow the land, hunt, build houses, and manage fiefs and factories. If you are allowed to own property and enter into transactions only in the name of your husband, you have to be very resourceful to get freedom. Women traded housekeeping services for social rights, on the condition that the buyer would visit the house as little as possible. If not war trips or merchant caravans, as it was for many centuries, at least a husband's face covered by a newspaper at breakfast and a 'Darling, I won't be home for dinner; too much work at the office', as it became in the nineteenth century. When the laws at last changed in the 1960s and women achieved complete financial independence, divorce rates among the older generation soared to the skies, while marriage rates among the youth plummeted. The only people who got married were those who wanted to talk to each other over breakfast and dinner, clean the house together, cook, and look after the children. And on weekends, these people wanted to go on family picnics and to the movies. So you're lucky. Sunarti has given you what you truly crave—solitude. You've found the freedom to be a hero. And a hero must be alone."
"She saw me as just a thing!" the guy seethed. "The key to citizenship! While she was learning the language and taking free prompt engineering courses at the employment center, I was needed. But as soon as she found a job, she wanted a divorce!"
"You wanted household appliances and bedding, so everything was fair game. The warranty expired, and the purchase broke. But you can buy a new one. Or you could admit that you don't need such items in your life. Or learn to balance work and life. Take one full-time job, not one and a half or especially two, and categorically refuse all overtime so you can spend evenings with your wife and kids. Don't take more than two missions for two weeks in a year."
"My friend quit our job!" the guy said angrily. "He's currently studying to be a safety inspector. He will work nine to five, five days a week, and Rebecca agreed to get married and have a child. We barely speak. His free time is predictable for years to come, but I rarely get to these hours because of emergency calls. And when we do get to meet, he talks more with his new friends than with me."
"But the other members of your work group have stayed. And the bond with them has grown even stronger, hasn't it? I wasn't kidding when I mentioned the knightly Order. And knights only have other knights."
"How do you feel when you come back to an empty house?" the guy suddenly asked. "You're without a husband or children; that's immediately obvious."
"At home, I can finally shut out the world and be by myself. A useful state for a researcher and collector. I relax. I just lounge on the couch with a plate of food and video games, books, TV series, gossip in private chats, or make new friends on hobby forums—whatever I want, and no one bothers me. Sometimes I think about how I will spend my old age in a boarding house, in a small room, where everything will be the same as it is now."
"But you're no hero."
"No," Riana smiled. "I'm a free hunter. The cat that walked by myself. Or a wolverine. I don't need a permanent pack. And I especially don't need anyone in my lair. And are you happy with your real pack? With your Order?"
"That's a tough question..." The guy wasn't angry anymore. He was thinking. "The pack... The Order... And old age, where no one needs us. The Orders took care of their veterans. The new wife will run away too... And in a year or two, he'll find a new father for the kids. Sunarti is already planning to go East. He says it's just as warm there, but there are more lucrative jobs in the AI generation industry... She says, 'No more marriage,' but only fools will trust women..."
"Only forty percent of divorced women want to remarry," Riana noted. "And that's in the super-liberal North. In the patriarchal South, it's just twenty-five percent. But that's not important. A normal stepfather won't interfere with his stepchildren's relationship with their birth father, especially if he's friends with his children from his first marriage. And a divorced woman won't live with an abnormal stepfather. Thanks to modern communication technology, you can keep in touch with your children and build a friendship with them, even if they live in another country, not only in another city. Children from all marriages can also be friends. This has become a normal part of a healthy modern-day relationship. However, this only applies if you truly want children and a wife."
"I don't know... Maybe it would be better to create a boarding house for pensioner agents to think about the future. If we don't support our old brethren ourselves, there's no one else. Or should I switch to coaching so I can spend all my evenings with my wife and kids?"
"Wouldn't you run away from such philistine happiness in a couple of years for unpredictability, heroism, and solitude?" asked Riana. "If you're unhappy with your work-life-balance, changing jobs and lifestyles will be even less appealing."
"I don't know." The guy shook his head. "Now I don't know myself, as it turns out."
"New acquaintances are always good, aren't they?" Riana smiled. "Especially getting to know yourself."
"Probably... In any case, this meeting can't be postponed any longer."
"Good luck with your union with yourself," Riana said. And she bought a vase and a painting.
There must always be room for a new path in life.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/52497217
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3370230/1/Riana-s-Adventures
Story-8. Solitude is a hero's reward
Riana drove a rented van through the streets of a suburb in a large southern city. The area was undergoing redevelopment, and homeowners, before trading in their properties for new homes or cash, were clearing out the piles of junk from attics, garden sheds, and garages that had accumulated there since the Roaring Twenties. Garage sales themselves were few, as the residents were mostly renters and had no heritage from previous eras, but Riana still made several good purchases during the week she spent in a small hotel near the suburb.
A young man was selling junk outside one of the houses. Riana was surprised: usually, garage sales were run by homeowners' teenage children or retired parents—people who had the time. Occasionally, there were remote workers, easily identifiable by their laptops; even rarer were housewives and disabled people. But a robust man in his mid-thirties holding only a phone?
Intrigued, Riana stopped the car, shielded her head from the scorching (even in mid-autumn!) southern sun with a half-hat she'd bought the day before at a yard sale and successfully restored to working order, and walked over to inspect the merchandise. And then Riana was even more surprised: all the items were brand new. They had been purchased with a taste and sense of style that was a bit quirky for this suburban setting, and indeed the South in general, but quite elegant. These items should have been stunning additions to the home, but they weren't fit for an antique store. It's surprising the guy didn't donate all of it to charity auctions—there's no other way to sell new secondhand clothes; it's easier to throw them away.
There was an interesting story behind it, and Riana didn't want to miss it.
She picked up a painted flower bowl and said to the guy, "Perfect for a Filipino or Caribbean-style ikebana. Did you make this yourself? You have talent!"
"No!" the guy said gloomily. "My wife bought it."
"And she's really willing to sell it?"
"Now it's none of her business what I sell or how!"
Riana smiled slightly. Using the term 'wife' instead of 'my ex', and selling things instead of throwing them away—that guy isn't ready to start a new, more successful life. He's probably also preventing his ex from doing the same. He'll end up with a restraining order and a ruined reputation, which will affect his career too. People are incorrigible in their desire to make decisions based on their lower hemispheres rather than their upper ones.
And Riana said, "Everything has its perks. You can look at your phone over breakfast, and no one grumbles. And even more so, no one yells if you spent the evening at the gym or taking advantage of lucrative overtime instead of family dinner. And casual sex has gone from being a betrayal to a lucky break."
"I wasn't fooling around!" the guy flared. "I'm a Rescue Services agent! But my wife said she was tired of being a married miss and left."
"And she gave you a luxurious gift."
The guy was about to protest, but Riana forestalled him:
"I'm sure all the men and women in your department are single or divorced. A hero must be alone or with his brethren heroes, but not with a wife or husband. You're alone again, and that's your strength. That's your luck. You can live the way you want."
"And come home to an empty house without food!"
Riana placed the vase on the table, then picked up a framed, embroidered picture. Although it was machine-made, the design was original and unique. Quite talented, too! Riana glanced at the guy.
"In the knightly Orders, knights shared a cell with a confrere, or at least four. Rent an apartment with your colleagues. When you come home, you'll find friends and a gaming console waiting for you, and you won't notice the dark windows or the microwave heating up food. And there won't be any annoying women around to ruin your evening with nagging." She placed the painting on the table and pointed to it and the vase. The shop might be a Victorian boutique, but a corner displaying contemporary art would add a touch of flair and novelty. "I'll buy it if you tell me the name of the shop or studio where it was purchased."
"What?" The guy was confused. "I don't know!"
"Too bad. I'll be here tomorrow, and if you gather information about the item, I'll take it."
"How can I find out?" The guy was puzzled.
"Send photos of these things to your ex and ask. If she blocked you, you need to search for them using image search engines."
"That bitch forbade me from seeing my son!" the guy suddenly yelled. "I can only see my children in the presence of a social worker! And only after taking a young father's course."
"'Children' or 'son'?" Riana smiled. "But all of this is a good opportunity to consider whether you even want children. Parenting is a lot of hard, responsible work, and few people really want it. You have the chance to distance yourself from parenthood forever. Child support is a cheap way to pay for paternity by mistake."
"My daughter is only a year and a half old. And my son is three; he's already starting to understand everything. He needs a father! A man!"
"It's an ideal time for fatherhood classes, isn't it?" asked Riana.
"Women have always looked after children!" the guy protested. "They taught them to honour their father! And this one... She told the judge that I was a danger to the children because I didn't know where the kindergarten or hospital was. I didn't know how to buy clothes for them, cook food or bathe or put them to bed. I didn't write a single line in the baby books, and she was alone organising parties for their first tooth and first steps! My lawyer got me the opportunity to 'learn how to be a father'. But even he couldn't secure me equal custody of my son. Of the children."
"When the kids are older and want an adult friend, they'll come to you themselves," Riana replied. "It's easier to be an older friend than a father. You only meet on Sundays when there's no homework or other commitments. All you have to do is make sure that your younger friends don't use harmful substances or access unhealthy websites. And find some healthy entertainment for them."
"Women always waited for their husbands!" The guy continued to resent. "Whenever my husband came home, his wife would greet him with a hot meal in a clean house. And now girls say, 'It's better for us to just be friends,' as soon as they hear what I do for a living... I met Sunarti during the flood... I brought her here and married her! As soon as the year after she received her citizenship had passed, she said that she wanted to formalise her status as a de facto single mother!"
"Women never waited for their husbands," Riana chuckled. "On the contrary, as soon as their husbands returned from military campaigns and trade caravans, their wives tried to send them back. Only then could women decide for themselves how to plough and sow the land, hunt, build houses, and manage fiefs and factories. If you are allowed to own property and enter into transactions only in the name of your husband, you have to be very resourceful to get freedom. Women traded housekeeping services for social rights, on the condition that the buyer would visit the house as little as possible. If not war trips or merchant caravans, as it was for many centuries, at least a husband's face covered by a newspaper at breakfast and a 'Darling, I won't be home for dinner; too much work at the office', as it became in the nineteenth century. When the laws at last changed in the 1960s and women achieved complete financial independence, divorce rates among the older generation soared to the skies, while marriage rates among the youth plummeted. The only people who got married were those who wanted to talk to each other over breakfast and dinner, clean the house together, cook, and look after the children. And on weekends, these people wanted to go on family picnics and to the movies. So you're lucky. Sunarti has given you what you truly crave—solitude. You've found the freedom to be a hero. And a hero must be alone."
"She saw me as just a thing!" the guy seethed. "The key to citizenship! While she was learning the language and taking free prompt engineering courses at the employment center, I was needed. But as soon as she found a job, she wanted a divorce!"
"You wanted household appliances and bedding, so everything was fair game. The warranty expired, and the purchase broke. But you can buy a new one. Or you could admit that you don't need such items in your life. Or learn to balance work and life. Take one full-time job, not one and a half or especially two, and categorically refuse all overtime so you can spend evenings with your wife and kids. Don't take more than two missions for two weeks in a year."
"My friend quit our job!" the guy said angrily. "He's currently studying to be a safety inspector. He will work nine to five, five days a week, and Rebecca agreed to get married and have a child. We barely speak. His free time is predictable for years to come, but I rarely get to these hours because of emergency calls. And when we do get to meet, he talks more with his new friends than with me."
"But the other members of your work group have stayed. And the bond with them has grown even stronger, hasn't it? I wasn't kidding when I mentioned the knightly Order. And knights only have other knights."
"How do you feel when you come back to an empty house?" the guy suddenly asked. "You're without a husband or children; that's immediately obvious."
"At home, I can finally shut out the world and be by myself. A useful state for a researcher and collector. I relax. I just lounge on the couch with a plate of food and video games, books, TV series, gossip in private chats, or make new friends on hobby forums—whatever I want, and no one bothers me. Sometimes I think about how I will spend my old age in a boarding house, in a small room, where everything will be the same as it is now."
"But you're no hero."
"No," Riana smiled. "I'm a free hunter. The cat that walked by myself. Or a wolverine. I don't need a permanent pack. And I especially don't need anyone in my lair. And are you happy with your real pack? With your Order?"
"That's a tough question..." The guy wasn't angry anymore. He was thinking. "The pack... The Order... And old age, where no one needs us. The Orders took care of their veterans. The new wife will run away too... And in a year or two, he'll find a new father for the kids. Sunarti is already planning to go East. He says it's just as warm there, but there are more lucrative jobs in the AI generation industry... She says, 'No more marriage,' but only fools will trust women..."
"Only forty percent of divorced women want to remarry," Riana noted. "And that's in the super-liberal North. In the patriarchal South, it's just twenty-five percent. But that's not important. A normal stepfather won't interfere with his stepchildren's relationship with their birth father, especially if he's friends with his children from his first marriage. And a divorced woman won't live with an abnormal stepfather. Thanks to modern communication technology, you can keep in touch with your children and build a friendship with them, even if they live in another country, not only in another city. Children from all marriages can also be friends. This has become a normal part of a healthy modern-day relationship. However, this only applies if you truly want children and a wife."
"I don't know... Maybe it would be better to create a boarding house for pensioner agents to think about the future. If we don't support our old brethren ourselves, there's no one else. Or should I switch to coaching so I can spend all my evenings with my wife and kids?"
"Wouldn't you run away from such philistine happiness in a couple of years for unpredictability, heroism, and solitude?" asked Riana. "If you're unhappy with your work-life-balance, changing jobs and lifestyles will be even less appealing."
"I don't know." The guy shook his head. "Now I don't know myself, as it turns out."
"New acquaintances are always good, aren't they?" Riana smiled. "Especially getting to know yourself."
"Probably... In any case, this meeting can't be postponed any longer."
"Good luck with your union with yourself," Riana said. And she bought a vase and a painting.
There must always be room for a new path in life.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/52497217
https://www.fictionpress.com/s/3370230/1/Riana-s-Adventures
