Chapter Text
Valette hadn’t been at the next Luthadel ball. In fact, she had missed several by now. According to what Shallan could ascertain from the gossip, she was sick. Obviously she felt bad for the girl, but part of her couldn’t help be a little sad at not being able to give her the finished drawing for so long.
It had been around a month since they’d first met, and Shallan had been unsuccessful in finding another person she clicked with quite like she had with Valette. Everyone was so caught up in their games of court, politicking their way through every interraction, it was a little depressing. She hung around a small group of women, gossiping and laughing like the rest of them though, even if it got exhausted at times, she was certainly learning about them and the machinations of the court, if only from the perspective of someone of a low social status within it.
Still, Shallan attended every one, to socialise, as she had been instructed to by Jasnah. Tonight’s ball was in keep Elariel, which had a smaller – though still grand – ballroom. A single story high, with stained glass windows on the ceiling above. They were beautiful as ever, but Shallan had been to several balls by now, the initial effect had worn off a touch.
Veil continued to snark at everything the noblewomen she interacted with said, and Radiant continued to be focussed exclusively on the practical aspects of all she was experiencing, and the potential dangers surrounding them, which left Shallan to at least try and enjoy it a little for the three of them.
Admittedly, however, the longer she stayed in the city, the more she was thinking about the cost of all this beauty. Seeing the Skaa, clearly an overwhelming majority of the population, almost all being treated as bad as Parshmen were on Roshar, really challenged her perception of things in a sort of terrifying way. It shadowed over her enjoyment of the sights, and she suspected that that had been Jasnah’s intention in sending her here.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a flash of black hair, and turned to find Valette walking towards a table nearby, seemingly returning from a dance. She wore a striking red gown this time, Shallan was honestly surprised she hadn’t noticed her earlier. She smiled internally. About time she showed up. Excusing herself from her current conversation, she headed towards her.
As she approached, Valette turned and smiled at her, eyes twinkling. “If you’re here to ask me to dance, I’m afraid I’ll have to refuse. My feet are killing me.”
Instantly, Shallan felt better. She rolled her eyes with a grin and pulled out a chair to sit across from her. “You are far too eager to reject me, is it that terrible a thought?”
Valette huffed. “Can’t imagine you’d be much better at it than the last one. I had to teach him, and I barely know the basic steps myself.”
She was right. “You insult me!”
Valette gave her a pointed look, as if asking if she was wrong. Shallan huffed back and pulled out her sketchbook.
“I can’t be that good a model that you’d draw me again already.”
“You say ‘already’ as if you haven’t been sick for a month,” Shallan paused and looked at her. “but in any case no, I prefer to draw subjects in action.”
Valette sipped a glass of wine dramatically in response.
Shallan rolled her eyes again and handed her the completed sketch she had done the night they’d first met. “Just take this, I want to see what you think.”
--
Vin tried not to think too hard about how comfortable she felt around Shallan, a woman she had barely met twice in total now. Somewhere inside her a part of her brain rang alarm bells, warning her of the dangers of getting close to someone, but she couldn’t exactly do much about it right now, so she would worry about it later.
She pulled the drawing across the table towards her, and stopped. It was gorgeous.
The drawing was incredible, she could only guess at the level of skill Shallan had to have to capture such detail. It was a full page, the centre of it dominated by the same grand stained glass windows, intricately recreated, textured, and detailed. The charcoal limited the colours to shades of grey but that only seemed to enhance the contrast between them, each part standing out yet fitting in perfectly.
In front of the windows, between two pillars, stood Vin, as she had been that day. She was bathed in shades of grey, washed in light from the windows. Shallan had done a fantastic job at capturing the distinct shades of light that had danced across her dress and skin. Her eyes twinkled slightly, her dress flowed beautifully, but most simple and striking of all – she looked beautiful.
She had been staring at the photo for a while now, and Shallan was smiling to herself, clearly satisfied. “This is beautiful.” She breathed.
“I’m glad you think so. It was a gorgeous scene, and I think it’s one of my best drawings I’ve done since I arrived here.”
“I mean you obviously exaggerated some aspects to make it work, right?”
Shallan shook her head and laughed. “I didn’t, it really was surreal. I only wish I could’ve drawn the music somehow too.”
Vin reddened slightly, and started pushing it back to Shallan “I-”
“No no no no it’s yours.” Shallan cut her off and waved her hand dismissively. “Believe me I have plenty of drawings.”
“Giving me one of your best drawings?” Vin raised an eyebrow at her.
“Since I’ve arrived here. Don’t flatter yourself too much I have plenty of better ones from back home.”
Vin paused, as if offended, “I guess I’ll have to work on being a better model.” but then softened. “Thank you though. It really is beautiful.” She trailed off, trying to gather her own thoughts on the matter.
The more time Vin spent around nobility, the more she was starting to love the beauty, the elegance, all of it was so perfect, and with Shallan acting so kindly to her she was starting to see her as a genuine friend.
The crew all said that all the nobles were corrupt, Kelsier especially seemed intent on killing as many as he could, but Vin found it hard to believe. They couldn’t all be awful, right? She wasn’t sure what to think, and she wanted to be more careful but something about Shallan disarmed her, she simply enjoyed herself while talking to her, which wasn’t a common occurance.
“Can I see some of your other drawings? Of Roshar, I mean, where is it? What is it like?”
Shallan smiled. “You know, out of all the nobility I’ve met you’re the first to ask me. Everyone just assumes it’s somewhere in the ‘outer dominances’ and leaves the topic.”
Vin merely cocked her head curiously.
Shallan leaned in conspiratorially. “I’m honestly not sure this is the best place to discuss it.”
At this, Vin had to know more. “I’m sure we could find a more private place.” Sazed had barely heard anything about Roshar and had asked her to see if she could learn more, but more than that, this was too intriguing to ignore.
Shallan grinned and stood up, Vin followed, and they found their way to a balcony a fair distance away from the dance floor. It was outside, an iron railing the only thing between the two of them and the mists curling in the night. It was dimly lit, and they couldn’t see far, but it seemed private enough. She hoped that two ladies gossiping on a balcony wouldn’t draw much attention, it wasn’t an uncommon sight in any case.
“So.” Vin said, turning towards her.
“So.” Shallan chuckled, turning aswell. “I suppose I should get the crazy part out of the way, I honestly don’t know why I’m telling you this so easily.”
Vin eyed her expectantly.
“Roshar is a different planet.”
There was a pause. “You expect me to believe tha-
“That’s up to you.” Her eyes twinkled, she was enjoying this.
“I- Well- I mean- Shallan you can’t just say that, Lord Ruler that’s insane!”
“Of course not, I do have proof.” She started pulling from her bag a different sketchbook than the one she had drawn in before.
“Sketches. Of a different planet. I know I asked to see them but I didn’t kno-”
Shallan just grinned and cut her off. “Bear with me, I’m gonna say a lot more things that will sound insane to you.”
“More than the idea that you’re an alien.”
Shallan nodded and flipped through the sketchbook. Vin was a little bit stunned, and struggling to come back to the present. A human from a different planet. She shook herself, and stood next to Shallan as she flipped to a page. Maybe she’s just insane? She thought, almost hopefully.
Over the next half an hour, Shallan animatedly flipped through drawings she claimed to all be from a different planet. Crab like creatures called ‘Chulls’, small floating things she called ‘spren’ which apparently were attracted to certain things in the world, like strong emotions, rain, or fire. She said there was a ferocious storm strong enough to throw boulders that came every few days, and that somehow she missed it. She spoke of crystal balls filled with light that could power contraptions, and people who could draw upon the light to access certain powers (though this was similar enough to allomancy that it might well have been the easiest part to believe).
Each sketch was more fantastical, intricate, and detailed than the last. Vin had gotten what she wanted, these sketches were incredibly, stunningly, beautiful. This can’t be real though, right?
The entire world was made almost purely of rocks, no dirt to be found anywhere, and their plants had-
Those are the very same leaves and flowers Kelsier had talked about a few days before!
They apparently had long roots and moved to hide at any creatures touch, aswell as sheltering inside themselves to not be hurt by the storm, but Vin wasn’t focussed on that. She stopped Shallan from turning the page with a touch, and she stopped her ramblings for a moment.
“Are you ok, Valette?”
“Yes, uh- yes. Sorry. Can I see those more closely?”
Shallan handed her the book, and having stopped rambling she lost some of her earlier confident demeanour, looking at vin a little anxiously. Vin stared at the plants, slowly touched the sketch with her hands. She had thought that over the course of the ramble she would grow more and more convinced that Shallan was insane, but… something was so alive about these sketches, so detailed, so real, and what reason would she have to fake it all?
They were far fetched, but the more she looked at the people, the plants, this world through the pages, the more her gut told her that this wasn’t something easily made up, that there were easier, more lucrative ways to fool people – Vin knew those methods intimately – and Vin usually believed her gut.
“You’re not lying are you.” She breathed, looking back up at Shallan.
Relief washed over her face, and she shook her head.
Vin handed her back the sketchbook, “This might be the most insane I’ve ever sounded, but I believe you,” then added, after a pause, “also, my steward is probably going to want to speak to you, if you’d be willing. He’s strangely interested in these things.” and hoped that Shallan wouldn’t find the request odd.
Sazed had, during her recovery, repeatedly tried to get more information out of the short conversation she’d had with Shallan at the Venture ball, asking her to repeat it several times, making sure she didn’t leave anything out. He would be eager to hear about this.
She tilted her head curiously “Your steward...? I’d be happy to I suppose, as long as it’s kept discreet.”
Vin nodded, relived to not be asking something too far-fetched. “I- thank you for telling me about this. Genuinely.” She glanced back toward the ballroom, no one seemed to have paid them any mind, which was good.
“Thank you for believing me.”
They sat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, watching the mists curl. Vin had to take a moment to think about what she had just seen, and Shallan seemed to understand, letting her think. Could she really believe it? Could she really trust that she wasn’t being lied to? Oddly, she found that she could, even if that fact alone shocked her to her core.
“I still don’t understand the superstitions surrounding the mists, there’s something really beautiful to them in my opinion.” Shallan almost whispered, after a while.
Vin laughed quietly. “Surely even back on Roshar you have superstitions, it can’t be that far-fetched. I used to be scared of them too until just a few months ago.”
“What changed?”
Vin shrugged. “I was shown that they’re friendly, I suppose, or at least harmless.” She burned copper for a moment, reaching out with a hand as the mists swirled around her, seeming to sense her Allomancy.
Shallan’s eyes widened slightly, watching the mists wrap around her arm. “Oh I wish I could sketch that.”
“You can’t?”
She shook her head. “No, not really, something about drawing them doesn’t work for me. I’m not sure why.”
Vin waited a pause, “I bet I could do it.” She stopped burning metal and dropped her hand back to the rail, next to Shallan’s.
“Oh do you really now?” Shallan raised an eyebrow, challengingly.
She gestured to have Shallan give her the sketchbook. “I do.”
Shallan handed her the sketchbook and a pencil, and she started drawing on a blank page. Vin started laughing quietly as she failed to draw anything resembling mists, making her hand shake more – which oddly made it better if anything. Shallan looked over her shoulder and started laughing too.
“Look it’s a Chull!” Shallan said, pointing to a shaky spiral in the middle of the page.
Vin’s laughter got louder at that. “No it’s a flower look at those ‘plental’ things or whatever you called them”
“’Plental’ things?” Shallan clutched her stomach,
“Yeah, look!” She tried and failed to trace what she saw, her laughter making her even worse than before. Vin gave the sketchbook back to Shallan, who’s laughter got worse as she saw what she had tried to draw.
Vin had to lean on the iron railing to steady herself as she tried to recover, taking deep breaths and trying not to look at Shallan lest she start giggling again. Eventually, after calming down, she noticed something. There was a noise coming from the darkness behind Shallan.
On instinct, she turned and sprinted toward it, putting herself between the noise and Shallan, making her jump. She pulled out a coin from a hidden purse in her sleeve, burning tin. The noise was a soft, constant, humming, but it had stopped as soon as she turned towards it. No one was on the balcony.
“Valette what are you doing?” Shallan sounded worried.
Vin internally cursed herself, she was supposed to be a noblewoman, Shallan wasn’t supposed to have seen this part of her, she’d let her guard down too far.
She acted relieved and slightly scared, turning back to the railing, although she didn’t stop burning tin. “Sorry,” She muttered. “I thought I heard something behind you, I got startled. It was nothing, maybe the wind whistling.”
Shallan hesitated, looking at the wall, worried, before her faced lit up in understanding. “Oh! It was probably Pattern. Sorry, I should’ve introduced you earlier.”
Vin blinked. “Pattern?”
“My spren,” She said, nodding. “He hums a lot, he likes lies, he says they taste good. Look closely at the wall, right there.” She pointed.
Vin’s heart skipped a beat at the mention of lies, hoping that whatever this spren was didn’t know she wasn’t who she said she was. She looked closely, and did see a slightly raised section of the wall, it was hard to see in the dark, but tin helped. It looked like a shifting segment of the wall, a small shifting fractal of raised stone. “That’s… Pattern?”
Shallan nodded. “He doesn’t like to speak around others very much, but he must’ve seen our ‘interpretations’ of your masterpiece of a drawing as lies” giggling slightly again, she turned back around to face Vin.
“...Your spren? What does that mean?”
“Oh, right, that’s a little complicated honestly, even I don’t fully understand it, and honestly it’s something I would rather talk about when we aren’t on a balcony at a ball where anyone could interrupt.”
Vin paused, then nodded reluctantly, understanding. With her tin still burning, she noticed the sounds of the ball behind them quieting down, apparently more time had passed than they had noticed, and people had been slowly trickling out of keep Elariel for a while now, and Sazed had probably been waiting for her for a long time by now.
She turned back to the glass doorway leading back to the ballroom. “Lady Shallan I think we may have lost track of time.” She said, returning to her courtly formal language, as she prepared to head back inside.
Shallan blinked as she too noticed the dwindling group of people. “It seems so, Lady Valette. I suppose it’s time we headed our separate ways then?”
Vin nodded, and held the door open for Shallan to walk through. Just before they walked through the door, however, she stopped and smiled softly down at her.
“It was really nice talking tonight, Send a missive to keep Hasting about that meeting with your Steward.”
Vin blushed and looked away “I- of course, Lady Shallan, and I really enjoyed tonight as well, genuinely.”
--
“Pattern?” Shallan asked as she rode a carriage through the mists, back to keep Hasting, where she was staying.
“Yes, Shallan?”
“Why did you hum and reveal yourself tonight?”
“Mmmmmm big lie, I could not stop myself. I’m sorry.”
“A big lie? Bigger than just us talking about bad drawings, I assume?”
“Yes, yes, Valette is lying, though I don’t understand exactly how, yet.”
Shallan frowned, “But…” she trailed off.
“Don’t feel so bad, Shallan, it is a good lie, I think. She was not lying about enjoying herself.” He continued humming to himself, as if thinking.
Everyone has their secrets, Shallan. If anything this intrigues me more. Veil noted internally.
Indeed, in fact I think you knew that already. No simple country noblewoman would be so entertaining, there is more to her that we don’t know about. Said Radiant in agreement.
I suppose you’re right, and I hope Pattern is right in that her enjoyment was genuine, at least. I hope I didn’t make a mistake in telling her about Roshar.
I don’t believe you did, but it’s too late now to change anything. We will see. Radiant replied.
It was with these conflicting thoughts that Shallan headed back to her rooms, and fell asleep.