Ria feels like she's going in circles.
She's always been the sort of person who knows exactly what she wants. She decided, when she was young, that when she grew up, she was going to travel, and she was going to write, and screw whatever anyone else said. Since then, she's been traveling and writing and traveling and writing and traveling and writing and, whoops, she's nearly thirty, and she has no drive and no ambition and nowhere to go from here.
Even romance is starting to get old, probably because she keeps circling back to the boys she knew in university, having a new honeymoon period, then leaving again when she remembers why things didn't work out in the first place. Now that she's an adult, and less easily impressed, it's harder and harder to find the excitement, the challenge, she's always looked for.
Well, she's certainly not going to find it here. She's been going to these parties a lot lately, to the point where she's starting to suspect that she feels more comfortable in this dull, unchanging world of dresses and gossip and tasteful amounts of alcohol because this is where she belongs. It's not the first time she's thought this, and she knows it won't be the last.
This particular party happens to be especially boring. Possibly because most intelligent people don't like to get too close to Howling Mountain. She's glad she had the foresight to bring a book.
She reads discreetly on a couch in a corner. No one bothers her.