I can’t remember anymore when I first decided I wouldn’t take my place in the family business the way I was expected to. It seemed so evident, maybe I always knew I’d end up running away.

I know my mother thought I was only going through a ‘phase’ as she called it. She tried everything she could to get me out of it.

Punishments. Those consisted of taking away things and activities I enjoyed; the only time she ever raised her hand on me I was an adult, and that was the day I left.

Bribes. She thought that by giving me more and more things, I’d realize the way to always have what I wanted was to follow the path that had been traced for me. All it did was make me grow tired of possessions that had no meaning.

Threats. She took me to a planet on the outer range, once. We walked through the dusty streets of something that could at best be called a village, and she pointed out all the things that these people didn’t have that I took for granted. All the things I would lose if I continued to rebel. All I could see was how much more alive these people seemed compared to us.

None of it worked. I knew what I wanted, and it wasn’t anything she or anyone in our world could offer me. The tattooed circles around my neck only meant one thing, as far as I was concerned: I had been collared from birth, and I needed to free myself.

So I did.