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**Sienna Astrid Helvig** (born c. 326) is a figure of the C9 universe, recorded as homo sapiens (lyall-helvig chimera), raised in the House of Confidence on Aerogaea 347n. She came out of future timeline (~350) and post-collapse sector.
Sienna is recorded for bio-organic manipulation (self & others). Her skin is her epidermal layer can secrete a malleable polymer — synthetic skin. She can mold this over her own features or others to create disguises. It feels like skin but acts like a seal. She wears faces to survive the environment: if she looks like a soldier, they respect her; if she looks like a Voidomorphian, they do not attack her. She does not heal magically — she redistributes. To knit a broken bone in Celestine, her own femur decalcifies to supply the material. To filter poison from Akio, she pulls the toxin into her own liver and processes it, getting sick in the process. She is a living transfer system. Healing is not pretty. It is a transfer of suffering. She radiates a low-level calming field — pheromone output — that lowers the heart rate of people around her. Passive. She cannot turn it off.
The record follows her across 3 periods of life, from year 330 onward. In the last of them she is recorded as xeno-diplomat.
Sienna appears in 7 of the 19 chapters written so far, beginning with The Glass House, chapter 1[1].
**Sienna Astrid Helvig** (born c. 326) is a figure of the C9 universe, the elder of the Helvig twins, and later a diplomat to the Voidomorphians. She is a Lyall-Helvig chimera and an empath. Her records place her origin in a future timeline around year 350, in a post-collapse sector, which is where she and her sister were born and which is not where they grew up.
## Early life
She is the daughter of [[life/chryssander-randolf-lyall-helvig|Chryssander Randolf Lyall-Helvig]] and [[life/amaryllis-rigel-helvig|Amaryllis Rigel Helvig]], and the twin of [[life/celestine-elsa-helvig|Celestine Elsa Helvig]]. She carried the Helvig name from birth. She was called Nenna as a child.
Sienna Astrid Helvig was born in about year 326. She was 4 years old in 330, the year the Klak Grove was destroyed. She is twin; youngest in the group. The records give her origin as future timeline (~350) / post-collapse sector. Her development is recorded as symbiotic maturation (thrives when connected to a group/pack).
## In the grove
## Celly’s anchor (330–339)
The twins arrived places before anyone remembered inviting them. Celestine came with a piece of fruit and her boots on the wrong feet, and Sienna stopped to switch them without comment[1].
Her standing at this time was celestine’s anchor / the "good" twin. Physically, 135cm. Always neat, hair in a chignon, wearing polka dots. She looks harmless, which is her primary defense. What defines her in this period is Celestine. Sienna cleans up the mess Celestine makes.
She brought tea. She made it the way she did most things, with more attention than the task appeared to need, and it came out better than it had any right to[1]. The tea of rebirth is hers: klak leaves from the same grove, processed a particular way she worked out by accident, which is how she works most things out, by paying attention for longer than anybody asked. There is about a minute between the right temperature and mint water, and inside that minute it makes a body feel slept, whatever the night was[1].
## Infiltration specialist (340–349)
She ran the paths quietly and efficiently, with the quality of somebody attending to things nobody else can see. She feels what the people around her feel. Not as a skill, the way [[life/marcus-norgaard|Marcus]] puts it, but as weather: it simply arrives, and you get used to it or you do not[1].
Her standing at this time was infiltration specialist / spy. Physically, she is rarely seen in her own face. She wears the "Synthetic Skin" masks to walk among enemies or gather intel. Her true face is a secret shared only with the family. What defines her in this period is she begins making unauthorized contact with the enemy, realizing they are sentient.
The morning the House opens on, the twins stopped their game in the upper branches and Sienna sat very still on her branch with her eyes open and not looking at anything in the grove[1]. Later she came down, sat beside [[life/eevi-charlotte-helvig-norgaard|Eevi]] without a word, and said nothing for a long time, and Eevi let her[1]. Then she brought the tea down in a clay cup and said to drink it first[1].
## Later years (350 onward)
In the kitchen she cooks with a specific oil she brought from somewhere and never said where[2]. The twins set the table every morning without being asked, which is one of the small facts about people that goes unnoticed until the day it stops[2].
Physically, she stops wearing masks. She stands openly between the Human armies and the Voidomorphians. What defines her in this period is forcing humanity to forgive the monsters.
When fifty armed men arrived, the twins were forty metres off, running circles in the grass, entirely unconcerned[3]. Sienna appeared beside Chryssander without his noticing, which she does, and which he had stopped finding uncanny, and asked the boy his name[3].
## Abilities
In the tesseract her hand found Celestine's wrist and Celestine's hand was already there[4].
The mechanism on record is bio-organic manipulation (self & others).
## The facility
The effect answers to touch. Both healing and disguise generation require physical contact. You cannot create life from nothing. To heal a wound, she must give her own vitality. Extensive healing leaves her bedridden, anemic, and gray. She is understanding the enemy makes it impossible to kill them. She hesitates when others strike.
The compound suppressed her empathy for weeks. On the ghost operation it was coming back in fragments, the signal finding its frequency again, and she used what she had: eyes closed, building a map of the perimeter out of presence and absence[5].
### Novice
Afterwards, when Celestine went quiet, Sienna sat beside her and offered the quiet rather than speaking into it, because her sister does not speak into quiet and has to be given it first[6].
She can heal minor cuts/bruises. Disguises are crude (like putty) and melt after a few hours. Telepathy is just "feelings" (scared/angry).
## Physiology
### Mastery
Sienna's epidermis secretes a malleable polymer, a synthetic skin she can shape over her own features or someone else's. It feels like skin and behaves like a seal, and at her best a disguise is a pore-perfect replica that holds for two days. She wears faces to survive a place: as a soldier she is respected, as a Voidomorphian she is not attacked.
She can knit complex organ damage (at high cost). Disguises are flawless, pore-perfect replicas lasting 48 hours. Telepathy becomes clear conversation with non-humans.
The same control turns inward and outward as medicine. At mastery she can knit complex organ damage, at a cost to herself.
### Decline/Shift
Her empathy is not a reading she performs but a channel she has. At its clearest it becomes conversation with things that are not human, which is the ability the rest of her life turns on.
Physical healing weakens, but her mental reach expands. She can link the minds of a group to share pain/thoughts, acting as a "Psychic Router.".
She is built like her mother, coordinated and fluid.
## Character
Her perception runs she does not have Celestine's twitch reactions. She processes data patiently, looking for the why behind the action. The record notes geologic patience for negotiation. Forced open. She cannot turn off the data stream of others. She senses adrenaline, pheromones, and pain instantly — not metaphorically, biologically. The cost of it is crowds are physically painful. She gravitates toward Marcus because his pain gate is welded shut — he is the only quiet room she has. To her, he feels like silence. She connects behavioral dots. The creature attacks when the wind blows north → it is protecting a nest → we should move south. When her empathy is running high, she subconsciously mimics the body language and micro-expressions of whoever she is talking to. It is not a conscious tactic. It establishes trust anyway.
She does not have her sister's twitch. She is patient with information and looks for the reason underneath an action, with a slowness that becomes an asset in negotiation. In a war zone she keeps her hair in a bun and her clothes clean, and the order is not vanity.
Early in life she held to a lie about herself: "If I follow the rules and stay clean, the chaos can't touch me." / “If I am quiet enough, I can keep the peace.”. Later she came to hold the opposite: "Peace is a dirty job.”. As a young woman, her voice was polite, soft, mediating. The record notes "Maybe they didn't mean it?". The record notes Prime: Tired, cynical, sharp. "I don't care who started it. I'm finishing it. The record notes sit down.". The record notes Elder: Warm, absolute. A voice that stops armies.This is a great addition. Sam is the definition of a "Glass Cannon"—high damage, high instability.
Through the early years she is the one who cleans up after Celestine. Later she began making contact with the Voidomorphians without authorisation, having worked out that they were sentient, and spent the rest of her life making people forgive the monsters.
## Family
Sienna is the daughter of [[life/chryssander-randolf-lyall-helvig|Chryssander Randolf Lyall-Helvig]] and [[life/amaryllis-rigel-helvig|Amaryllis Rigel Helvig]], and the twin sister of [[life/celestine-elsa-helvig|Celestine Elsa Helvig]].
## Appearances
Sienna is present in 7 of the 19 chapters written so far.
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-1-the-klak-grove|The Glass House, chapter 1]]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-2-the-glitch|The Glass House, chapter 2]]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-3-the-lab-and-the-threat|The Glass House, chapter 3]]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-5-the-first-of-senetis|The Glass House, chapter 5]]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-11-the-poison|The Glass House, chapter 11]]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-13-the-ally-and-the-ghost-op|The Glass House, chapter 13]]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-17-the-explosion|The Glass House, chapter 17]]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-1-the-klak-grove|The Glass House, chapter 1]] — Sienna had come with tea — she made it the way she did most things, with more attention than the task seemed to require, and the result was always better than it had any right to be.[1]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-2-the-glitch|The Glass House, chapter 2]] — The kitchen smelled like warming food and the oil Sienna put in the pan for the eggs, which was a specific kind of oil that she'd brought from somewhere and never told them where.[2]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-3-the-lab-and-the-threat|The Glass House, chapter 3]] — Sienna and Celestine were forty meters away, running circles in the grass, completely unconcerned with the arrival of fifty armed men.[3]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-5-the-first-of-senetis|The Glass House, chapter 5]][4]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-11-the-poison|The Glass House, chapter 11]] — Sienna looked at the scanner at the end of the corridor.[5]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-13-the-ally-and-the-ghost-op|The Glass House, chapter 13]][6]
- [[pages/glass-house-chapter-17-the-explosion|The Glass House, chapter 17]] — Sienna had noticed and had been sitting beside since they arrived.[7]
## See also
- [[life/celestine-elsa-helvig|Celestine Elsa Helvig]]
## References
1. [[pages/glass-house-chapter-1-the-klak-grove|The Glass House, chapter 1]]
2. [[pages/glass-house-chapter-2-the-glitch|The Glass House, chapter 2]]
3. [[pages/glass-house-chapter-3-the-lab-and-the-threat|The Glass House, chapter 3]]
4. [[pages/glass-house-chapter-5-the-first-of-senetis|The Glass House, chapter 5]]
5. [[pages/glass-house-chapter-11-the-poison|The Glass House, chapter 11]]
6. [[pages/glass-house-chapter-13-the-ally-and-the-ghost-op|The Glass House, chapter 13]]
7. [[pages/glass-house-chapter-17-the-explosion|The Glass House, chapter 17]]
5. [[pages/glass-house-chapter-13-the-ally-and-the-ghost-op|The Glass House, chapter 13]]
6. [[pages/glass-house-chapter-17-the-explosion|The Glass House, chapter 17]]