The characters contained herein are not my intellectual property. I have experienced no fiduciary gain from this literary excursion.

I was careless. It was unintentional. It has marked me for life. I still cannot believe it actually occurred, despite the scarring. I requested the surgeon leave a small reminder somewhere discrete. She did wonderful work. Brilliant. To look at my face you would never know the extent of the damage. You would never even realize there had been any to begin with.

How, you ask? It ws a jealous lover. No, not her. I haven’t seen them for quite some time. I believe her to be past jealousy, as is appropriate. This was unexpected and caught me completely unawares. My apologies. I should begin at the beginning.

I was on a moon away from the Central Planets. Yes, I know. You’ve told me there is no good reason to venture away from the Core several times. I still maintain there is much to be learned in distant regions. I was on this particular satellite for the wedding ceremony of two friends. It was the bride’s home world.

The son of a neighbor had been quite taken with me. I did not actively encourage him. I concur, it would have been cruel. Young men need very little encouragement, and I tried to avoid encouraging anyone there. It would have been pointless. Truly, I did no more than smile and use commonplace civility towards the boy. I was careless and failed to notice the unintended effect it was having. He was really very sweet, if a bit uncouth. His sweetheart grew jealous of the attention he was paying me. She felt he should be looking at no one but her, ever. I was told all this after the fact. If I’d had any inkling that she even existed I would have been more careful, more reserved around him. Unfortunately this is not how events unfolded.

It was two days after the wedding. I was walking back to my shuttle. No, it’s not actually my shuttle anymore. I still think of it as mine. It was my home for over a year. I was quite fo