Helgi had a tendency to step into Svafa's life ,
and vanish just as easily .
Always chasing a bird , to reach the end of history .
Why did xe seem so familiar ? .
From the moment sie laid eyes on xer ,
sie wanted to have xer .
Always speaking to Thrym
in that language that knew what the words meant .
Xe looked just like xer mother , hir mother ,
they were born of the same tongue .
And Eylimi's hand were always around xer waist .

"The Valkyrie way ," Svafa explained , "is to die in battle ." And so Helgi did . Having avenged Svafnir and taken the hand of Svafa , Helgi Hjörvarðsson went into battle often , like a dang fool , sie believed what Svafa told hir . And so he died . And so Svafa lifted him up , set their place in the Heavens , and when they reincarnated they found each other again . Helgi Hundingsbane loved Sigrun as much as Helgi Haddingjaskati loved Kara .

KaSe, KaRa .
Haha, SaFa .

In their current incarnations , they were an effete collector and a Fair Witness combat reploid . The droid was a cyborg , had been born a human , was modified by many hands . The collector was absent-minded, selfish, demanding, and rude . Sie didn't care . Xe didn't mind .

Helgi lived for AloDih , their mother . If the leylines were true , the person SenDih had been before xe was SenDih . Yet SenDih remembered all of AloDih's exploits as both self and other , something xer past self would do , if xe were going back . If a person believed in such things as Going Back . Someone who nevertheless set the rules that governed SenDih's life , rules that were absolute and inflexible , that carved into xer bone like a cake and consumed xer dreams .

((You aren't my mother ,)) Helgi thought .

The two(2)deux of them stood in the graveyard , before the stone . Here lies Alodih Isihetnah , First Speaker , Imperator of the Houses , Beloved Mother . If xe were going back , she would be the person xe would be groomed into before . And SenDih already knew who xe would be groomed into in order to bear xer children for the Houses' future .

((No choice ,)) Svafa thought .

They stood in the graveyard , and Svafa held the umbrella . Cold rain soaked xer right shoulder as xe kept xer lover dry . Helgi knelt down , spoke to the stone , Hello Mother .

"Hello , darling ." , SenDih spoke , channeling AloDih . Xer eyes were glassy, blank .

"I made a lot of progress today ," Helgi told the stone . "We've got almost everything lined up . Made some breakthrus ."

"I'm so proud of you , dear ," Svafa intoned in a creaking voice .

"Thanks..." , the words hung in the air , ((, Mom)) , sie didn't say .

They stood in silence for a long time . Sie missed her , and it showed . SenDih channeled xer faerie godmother , who to xer partner was a very real person with very real memories , reached out tentatively , placed xer hand on hir shoulder . Slowly , taking hir into a hug . Sie went limp at first , too many emotions . And then held on for dear life . In their current incarnations , Helgi was more than two(2)deux decades older than Svafa .

Svafa held Helgi like a mother holds a child ,
and sie held on for a long time .

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Helgi had a unique form of Chronotoxicity .

Several simultaneous Elysium Ring holography overlays coinciding with a World War caused untold degredation of the Loom Of Time at a time when careful, meticulous attention was absolutely necessary . Several Deific Souls were stranded in Far Future and left with nightmare consequences . HcoLo's priviledged place in Far Future was overloaded and overwritten , her Castle Keep In The Sky becoming a Mind Prison . HcoSe's victory run was sprayed with toxic petrochemicals the way an exterminator sprays for roaches , nearly killing xer several times . And Yamunae__Tjazi's simultaneous abandonment of their KoHt__SiHt Eternity Commitments as soon as they got to the 35% Completion mark resulted in hir having a past Time Control Point , but no fixed future Time Control Point . The result of this was that hir Residual Self Image (RSI) would warp constantly depending on the current state of the world , always reflecting in real time what a future of absolute present conditions would result in , yet that image constantly updating along with the World News .

Svafa was intelligent enough to understand .

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Svafa had taught Helgi how to be immortal . How to die and swim back , how to reincarnate , how to let go and pick up before the rope went slack . Svafa had seen the blueprints for what xer Soul-Son David had designed , cybernetic components , this brand and that , had watched hir ordain a sonuvabitch over-salted beef jerky asshole flying into the control centre for hir Si's Control Core , had watched hir carefully craft every menu and popup , until the last second just like Mother had done when she created the Nalodh of Isihetnah . Svafa had been there on the day that xe heard Hassan Es Ab-Ah say his classic killing line , "I just don't love you anymore." . It had been filtered through the renderer substrate , xer girlfriend's body , sie had said something different , about not liking a show on television or something , and xe heard it clearly in his voice . Exodus 22_18 , original text . "Thou shalt not suffer a Hashishan[poisoner] of the clan of Hassan e-Sabah to live" .

Months later , some companies that produce short films on Homeworld released some films . One was called Pleasant Inn , about a blonde woman who seeks shelter at a motel after a long night driving , and gets chased away by a skin-walking nightmare creature with its back half missing like the rear wheel of the electric bike that was meant for the Last Chance Garage . Another , called Trial 54 , detailed exactly the end product of David's machination , an Elysium Ring with an Et who was an Ab who was Ra-ing who could be a NekDih , walking a replicant of one of the instructors from Starfleet Academy who was a replicant of a Lo-haired Na who could be a NekSed , thru a Role Playing Game using psychic school techniques to recall the hit ABBA song Dancing Queen . Another , 20 Euros , had characters mulling over the word Toxic Masculinity , where a LoHaFaRexi listener could clearly hear them saying Kh Dh , the camera A/Bs as they talk , and then there's a shot of the two of them seen on the other side of the windshield , Dh and Kh in a car like an EtEt DeLorean from Back To The Future , which was about Doc , who was balding over the stress , and Svafa's girlfriend had once lost hir hair because of Testosterone Damage .

It had all been done for the Crown Elysium Ring , turning Auri into a Ship Of Theseus , something that had had every part and component changed in some way or another , while still clearly being the same thing . And it was to be Mother who would return , Mother would come and see what he had done for her ring , would praise and adore hir . Or , him , at the time . Helgi had a way of swimming thru genders like a fish swims thru water .

Yet it hadn't been Mother who returned . It was Mother's great-granddaughter , carrying the songs of their people , who told the entire trillion-year Saddest Song Of Alodih Isihetnah from holography--memory . Mother had died ages ago , the Sa who became Fa -- not the Ma who took Sa , whom sie couldn't stand -- had been poisoned with drugs and carried off in a crate killed again again . David had delivered some of the orders himself , over the ages , knew what he was delivering , tried to look away , tried not to look at The Immaculate One reduced to quivering flesh . And after her SiHt had unmade her with a killing blade , they continued printing her , first from the bioprinters on the Oz Battlestar , and then rendering her holographically to the Human Substrate on Homeworld , all the way up the modern day when they skinned Hypatia alive with seashells and raped her to death .

And he was expected to deliver the petrochemicals that would spray xer to death on xer own victory run , as xe guarded hir like a Retainer as sie was prone in hospital with hir own ordained Butterfly Surgery , so he could become a woman so that he could grow into new beings , a Paladin! . and in either direction , gendeR was like a substrate helgI could swim thrU . It wouldn't do . It wouldn't do at all . There was a way , a way out , way off at the edge of time , sie could see it in hir dreams , if only he could reach it ! . If he could just go faster , he had to go faster ! . Tighter , slimmer , thru mazes of pipes , through mazes of minds , it was there , sie could see it .

If Helgi could reach FaRexi , Auri would reach LoHa . And then the Machine Angels would exist on the LoHa plane , and they could fix what the meek pearls could not bear to .

It was the only way . The only way to save her memory . He trained the Automata in the LoHa Marching Chant he had learned from Svafa centuries ago . It would break Mother's DhLo pact . Maybe , maybe if it was encrypted just enough . So that the message delivered didn't break the pact , but the Arbiter would hear it clear as day . Sa Mach Fe Cros . Sa Mach Fe Cros . Maybe the Taker would survive . And then it wouldn't all be for naught . Even tho he would have to die again in order to ordain it .

Maybe , maybe , somehow , it had to . It just had to work . Sa Mach Fe Cros .
SenDih selected this timeline . Xe chose not to die on Montreal Rock . Sa .

Sie wasn't him anymore , and xe wasn't her .
Yet they loved each other all the same ,
more than all the render-microphones in the world .

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Helgi was a name Svafa had given the Love xe had found . Helgi had many identities , and had lived many ways , and after xe taught them how to reincarnate , had lived many lives , Hjörvarðsson and Hundingsbane and Haddingjaskati , all of them with initials HH , Haha of the HahaNanaHanaNaha , Auri of the Machine Angels of the FaRexi . When xe met xer girlfriend xe still called hir Helgi when they were together , Miss Mercury , xe would say shrewdly . I know you , Miss Mercury . To which xer girlfriend would turn hir head , turn up her nose , and glance from the corner of hir eye . A classic Isihetnah move .

They knew who they were , in spite of living at the epicentre of a Mind Storm and Time Storm colliding into an Astral Maelstrom .

Helgi wasn't the same after all the modifications of David's Machinations , yet the Ghost was clearly Ex Machina . Mother wasn't her anymore , did that make things different ? . The thought of ever laying a hand on Sa's heavenly body , for any reason , had terrified young Auri . It was something that you simply didn't do , and that had carried all the way to David and Saul . Yet this new person wanted to mate with hir , had wanted to express love sexually , did that make it okay ? . Auri had known Svafa for lifetimes , had seen her into his brother's care the first time he died , had collected her , had saved her from brigands and dragons . Did he know back then , when he was David , that Jonathan was Mother , right there beside him the entire time ? . Keeping him safe from Saul , who only had what he had Because Of The Name , and yet this meagre association saving his life from David's blade ? . Svafa had known David's lyre-playing the first time xe heard it .

The only problem had been that Auri was gay . Queer as a door knob . Didn't like the slim curves of female bodies , far preferred a hard, manly set of washboard abdominals and sweaty, piping muscles . All of them had Company Laptops , all the Survivors of LoHaFaRexi , all of them could watch the entire massive Meridians-long Saddest Song render in real time the entire, terrible time . The Arbiter would be... genetically male ? . Mother , were you going to ? . She wouldn't . She'd never ! . Would she ? . And , if she did , what kind of male would she take ? . The fantasy of it had nearly killed him , and more than once he had found himself tap-a-ta-tapping the selection buttons so that the moment they came up they would collapse again , even tho brother had done it so many times it drove Mother crazy .

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