Riven's Story

I seldom talk about my life before I came to Steelhead. I would like to tell you a bit about it now.

I am older than I look in SecondLife, but I imagine you have already guessed that. I have lived several lives in many places, although they seem few indeed when I think of all the many lives and places that may found in the real world. I wonder sometimes if I've restricted myself too much in my real life.

But enough of that--I want to tell you about my husbands.

"Husbands?" I hear you saying, "Just how many of them DID you have?" "Four" is my reply. At least, there were only four that I would honor with that title.

The first one came to me when I was living in a rambling flat in the old section of a very large city, working at a job I hated. I thought he was the most romantic man I'd ever seen, and I heard the same from all my female friends. He was not tall, but had a magnificent bearing. His family were immigrant trolls, long established in England and somewhat intermarried into British society. Although for many years they had been pillars of the intellectual establishment, they were not considered of the first rank and never properly accepted by the British aristocracy, who preferred to call upon them as a sort of hired help.

He was a difference engine designer, living far away from home while on assignment in a city not far from mine. He had left his wife at home, and missed her very much.

I was very young in those days. I believed him when he said, "My wife won't mind." And later, when I met her, I worked very hard to make those words be true. I think it's possible that by the end I loved her even more than him--at least her death was far more of a shock to me than his.

Oh, at first it was a truly magical time! We would arrange to meet, sometimes in my city, sometimes in his or someplace else entirely. I remember well one Sunday when we sat in an elegant coffee house all afternoon reading poetry to each other, then fed each other Chinese food, each morsel held in silver chopsticks, reaching far across the table with each bite. We saw the greatest art, the most magnificent parks. We sought out concerts by the day's acclaimed elfin musicians, and danced and danced and danced while our clothing swirled about us and changed colors in the fretty moonlight.

And then he told me that his wife was coming. He was so happy--I tried to be as happy for him, but I knew that when she came I would no longer be the most important person in his daily life. I'd always known she held that role in his heart, I thought it would be joy enough to hold his temporary attention, but I feared that even that would leave me now.

I went back to my city, to my rambling flat full of friends. And then even that was snatched away from me--but that is another story, I will tell it to you sometime.