Age: 14

A slight, short boy known for being very particular about his clothing along with an unnaturally precise sense of time. With Santonian heritage, he's got brown skin, dark brown hair, brown eyes, and he's very short—he'll be lucky to reach 5'.

Sal has a strong sense of style.

Sal was brought to Larstead when he was an infant by his father. Sal does not know of his mother and his father won't speak of it. Sal doesn't even know his last name. His father refuses to speak anything of the past, though Sal has slowly pieced together some of it during his father's drunk ramblings. What he does know is something happened when his father was in the military, something that got him "exiled" to this "barbarian shit-hole".

His father is quick to anger at perceived slights, and had beaten Sal for something so little as coming home dirty. He demands perfection, forcing his son to stand at attention a single hour every morning. This has burned into Sal's soul a neurotic sense of perfection, one he can never achieve.

Even though Santonians are the dominant people of the province, Larstead is a remote village filled with white people (what his people commonly refer to as barbarians). Sal does not fit in. His diminutive stature and brown skin single him out as 'other', something the local kids take extra effort to remind him. He is often the focus of their anger against perceived slights.

His only friend is Roland Anselm, his best friend, who protects him from the other kids. Sal would rather he not. Bullies don't bother Sal as much as they probably should. They don't bother him at all. Compared to what he deals with in his father, the town kid's bullying just doesn't rank for him.

What Roland does offer him is an escape from his father. A place he can go where he doesn't have to think about his troubles at home. A place where he can see what a loving family is like.

He does not like Roland's adventures, merely putting up with them for the sake of his friend. Yet Roland's reckless freedom also represents something that Sal can never be, and he romanticizes his friend's approach to life.