Helena of Salutus, Saint of Sickness

## Helena

A painting of Helena in her hometown, housed within a private collection in Korevna.

## Physical description

### Eye color

Brown

**Saint Helena of Salutus** was a woman who lived during the time of the Palus Flu around 330 A.E. and who became famous for the curious events surrounding her life.

## Biography

Helena was born to a family of farmers on the edge of Salutus, Arimania. She was the ninth child born to the family, the sixth to survive into adolescence. Five more siblings would come after her. Her mother eventually opened a small tailoring business within the town and Helena worked there from an early age. It was around this time she began to claim to have visions of Justain. Her parents did not believe her and would often suppress her religious ravings through caning and forced isolation. Helena became more isolated as she entered her teenage years, after her bouts of religious ecstasy began to seem too erotic to her parents.

While she was being kept in the attic of her parents farm house around 333 A.E. the Palus Flu began to spread across the continent, killing millions. Salutus was one of the first places effected, mostly due to its proximity to Palus and the use of the Green River to irrigate the town's crops. All but two of Helena's siblings died of the plague, her parents both perished, and one of her siblings who survived was struck permanently blind from it. While this was happening, Helena had been kept locked away in the attic. Her siblings fled the home, leaving her locked away as they presumed she had died weeks before.

For three years, Helena was locked within her attic prison. She survived through what she called "miraculous fruits" which would sprout from her walls fully formed and tasting of honey. Whenever she was thirsty, she would pray and blood would drip from a crack in her ceiling into her open mouth. When she was lonely, her guardian angel, an entity she called Malthusaleez, would appear to her and teach her sermons and lessons. It was also through Malthusaleez that she was instructed to stay within her attic room and to not leave, despite the possibility of escape through her nearby window. Along with this command she was told three other "important truths" from her guardian which she kept within her heart. These were:

1. Do not bathe
2. You will soon heal a great many people
3. You will give birth to a most resplendent son

On the third anniversary of her imprisonment, a group of soldiers and plague priests entered the home searching for survivors of the flu. They broke into the attic chamber and were horrified by the filth and squalor in which they found the room. Helena was sleeping on her filthy straw bed, covered in pustules and bubos and swarmed by flies. Her hair was so matted that the guards eventually hacked it from her head with swords. When they saw her, they thought her dead until she stirred. They were prepared to kill her but suddenly the room filled with light and a voice stopped them saying, "Look upon this woman for within her is the savior of mankind! The son of Justain grows within her belly and he will be the cure to your pestilence!" Then when they looked back upon her they saw that she was bloated with child where she had not been before.

### Life as a Saint

Helena was called to walk the streets of Arimania, where the sick and dying of the plague piled high in mounds of refuse. She walked bare foot from Salutus to Justainia, stopping in villages to tell the people the good news of Justain and blessing them with the knowledge that the plague would soon pass. Helena was able to heal people she touched, saving many peasants on her pilgrimage. She was brought in Justainia before the Emperor Vilosius who was suffering from the plague. Helena, upon trying to bless him, failed to cure his disease, and for this, was thrown into the dungeon for heresy.

While within the dungeon, Helena was visited by Malthusaleez one last time, who induced her labor, saying, "Look now, from thee slithers the Son of God." Eye witnesses who saw Helena in the moments after the birth claimed that her child was neither human nor animal, but a daemon. It was described as stillborn, a snakelike worm the size of the mother's torso with the head of a man and a mane of wild hair. Its claws were stunted and malformed and its tongue was bloated out of its mouth. It had a disc that floated behind its head wherever it turned. Despite its stillbirth it was alive and moved and curled in its mother's arms.

When the guards saw it, they were afraid. No one knew what to do with it, until finally someone was brave enough to rip the creature from its mother's arms and dash it against the cell floor. When it died, the disc behind its head disappeared and the sun turned dark. Afraid of her, the guards took her into the yard and burnt her on a makeshift pyre before a trial could be held. The remains of the infant were lost. Helena was said to have exulted in the pain of the flame and witnesses said that a strange spinning wheel of fire within the flames seemed to move around her as she burnt. Her ashes were lost.

## Sainthood

Helena was canonized many years after her death. Her miracles were the survival within the attic, healing of peasants, and birth of the Son of God. With her death also came the end of the Palus Flu in 326 A.E. She is considered the saint of the sick and dying.

The local cathedral at Salutus holds a strange spinal column said to be the one of her infant son.