Bubbled water runs across golden silks, to and fro, its salted life upon ancient sands. The crashing waves are the song of this land, a home I have known all my life. A hymn I have grown bored of humming.
The Empirium first bloodied our oceans when my mother was but a girl. They molested our lands and burned our cities when she first joined the resistance. And now, when she is long dead and the memory of her smile fades slowly from my mind, they rape our sisters and make songs of our enslavement.
Everyone always says they hate the Empirium. I first discovered, when my own uncle ratted me out for burning one of their barracks, that hate is just another word for fear.
But not for me.
I hate the Empirium with every bone in my body.
And I would do anything to burn those they love most. Just as they burned my mother on that day.
My home planet is called Blue Phoenix.
The oxygen here makes flames burn blue…like the ocean.
I like to think my mother drowned instead of burned.
I like to think that I am the ocean.
And that one day, the Empirium will burn blue with my flames.
They call me Salvator.
They think I was named after the blue singing bird of our oceans. But I know my mother named me after the ancient flame of freedom.
So if any soul wearing the eagle of the Empirium still listens, know this:
On the day of my rise, the Empirium capital shall hear my song; the hum of crushing waves, burning everything in their path.
This I swear on my mother's grave.