Hi, I'm Auditioning For The Role Of Spook, Survivor Of The Flames, And I'll Be Singing "Village Lanterne"

F is for Frillbloom.  For more on frillbloom, visit the coppermind!

Gunnerkrigg Stormlight Mashup

Because I saw the first panel of today's Gunnerkrigg Court update and my reaction was "Dude!  When did Paz become a Windrunner?" I don't think Paz is actually a windrunner though.  She would hang out with Shallan and they would go meet all of the creatures.  Paz would absolutely be up for tracking down a chasmfiend for a chat. (Oh man, Shallan in Gillitie Wood.  She would be so excited.) 

More below the cut, but it kinda got long.

Eglamore, on the other hand, would totally be a Windrunner. Parley might be as well, but she also might be a Willshaper.  I'm not sure. 

Kat would hang out with Navani and they would be awesome engineers turning magic things into technology together.

Annie is half Horneater and inherited the ability to see and interact with all of the spren.  She discovers she is a Lightweaver (I guess, unless she finds a way to get transportation and illumination, but that doesn't appear to be a thing) and quickly learns to navigate Shadesmar.  (Blinker stones are totally infused spheres).

Zimmy is a Lightweaver who didn't have a mentor to teach her to navigate Shadesmar and sometimes she gets sucked in unintentionally and sometimes she accidentally pulls other people in with her and sometimes she managages to only get partway pulled in and accidentally projects an image of Shadesmar into the physical realm.  The whole situation is a mess. She finds it relaxing to stand out in the riddens after each highstorm. It helps to ground her.

Ysegrin would be one of the Parshendi leaders.

Coyote is Wit. Or...no... maybe Jones is Wit and Coyote is the Stormfather.  Yes, I think that works better.

I can't decide where Reynard would fit in and it's bugging me.

EDIT: I figured Reynard out.  He is totally a Kandra.  

So I saw @ultimateinferno theorizing about this, and I want spoilers hidden under a cut on my blog, so I’m making a new post rather than reblogging to add to his excellent theory/meta. There are *major Rhythm of War spoilers* mixed with theorizing under the cut.

Ultimateinferno makes a good argument that Lift is the one who is eventually going to deal with Taravangian!Odium. This is *perfect*.

Lift’s “I don’t want to ever change.” You know what? If she kills Taravangian she’s going to get the opportunity to absorb Odium and ascend. Either her boon is going to give her the strength to resist taking the power so that she can deal with it some other way (maybe she could team up with Rysn??? I wonder what kind of affect shattering Odium would have...) OR she *will* take the power, but because of Cultivation’s boon it won’t affect her ability to think clearly.    

Heh, although, Lift, as she is right now, but with the power of a shard might be a whole different kind of problem. As Yanagawn points out, “She often does what she isn’t supposed to.”

I’m in the choir at First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta. We performed the Vivaldi Gloria with our orchestra. Merry Christmas! (I think I have it set to start about 6 minutes into the video where the concert actually begins)

Monica Dewey, soprano Matthew Reese, countertenor Rolando Salazar, conductor

Shallan's Journey: Chapter 5, In Which We Get Out of the House

“Ok, what sort of disguise did you have in mind?” Hermione asked when they returned to the library.

Shallan gave her an enigmatic smile as she turned to her sketchbook and quickly drew Veil. She then took her partially used sphere and wove the image around herself before turning back to Hermione. “Something like this.”

Hermione's eyes widened and she had Shallan walk around the room while she watched for anything that might tip someone off that the girl was wearing a disguise. When she couldn't find anything, she nodded thoughtfully, “It is certainly convincing. Now we need to make sure it won't be easily dispelled. We can cast glamours, which have a similar effect, but if someone suspects them they are easy to counter.”

Sirius had assured them that the ministry would not be able to detect any spell work done in the house, so Hermione raised her wand and started with “Finite Incantatem.” Nothing happened. She smiled, “Well, that's a good start.” She then pursed her lips as she doggedly ran through a sequence of increasingly complex spells used to counter a variety of different glamours and illusions. None of them had any effect. Hermione tapped her chin with her wand as she considered other possible ways to disrupt Shallan's illusion before nodding to herself, “Nox”. This time the illusion seemed to flicker and Hermione raised her eyebrows in question.

“That one worked, but I was able to bring it back quickly,” Shallan held up the now dun sphere, “if you did that again I probably wouldn't be able to though.”

“Hmmmm....well, Nox is not a common way to counter illusions,” Hermione tilted her head to the side and muttered mostly to herself, “It's usually just used to extinguish your wand after you use Lumos. I only thought to try it because I saw you cast an illusion with Lumos. As long as you stay out of situations where someone might be extinguishing their wand that shouldn't be a problem...”

While Hermione was analyzing how much of a weakness the vulnerability to Nox would be, Shallan was contemplating her dun sphere. She quickly cut in when Hermione paused, “Hermione, can I borrow your wand to try something while you think?” Hermione nodded and handed it to her while still mostly lost in thought. After a couple of tries, Shallan managed to correctly cast Lumos and then turned her attention to the sphere, willing the light into it. She smiled in satisfaction as the sphere began to glow again. Fantastic. Now I don't have to worry about not being able to recharge my spheres. She grinned mischievously and turned back to her sketchpad. After finishing the sketch, she beckoned Pattern over. “Pattern, we know you can maintain an illusion. Is there any reason you wouldn't be able to help maintain an illusion I cast on someone else?”

Pattern buzzed thoughtfully, “Mmmmm... I should be able to.”

“Ok, let's try it,” Shallan infused Pattern with light from Hermione's wand and then sent him over to ride on Hermione's shirt as she used her sketch to build an illusion.Shallan called out to pull her friend out of her thoughts, “Hermione, go look in the mirror.”

Shallan followed Hermione as she headed down the hall to the full sized mirror in her room, amused that her friend was still half lost in mentally running through potential challenges they needed to prepare for. A brief glance in the mirror shocked Hermione back to reality as she turned back and forth between Shallan and the mirror. “You... you made me look exactly like you!” She reach up to touch the soft red curls she saw in the mirror and frowned as she felt her normal hair.

Shallan saw her confusion and explained, “It's just an illusion, so you can reach through it, but as long as I'm careful about creating it, that shouldn't be a problem. It does mean that it is safer not to create illusions of different clothing though.”

Hermione briefly considered this and nodded. “We should be able to find nondescript robes to use as part of the disguise.”

Shallan grimaced and pulled her sleeved safehand to her chest. She knew that she was going to have to wear the local clothing when she went out, but she had been trying not to think about it. Just as Veil couldn't wear a proper havah and still blend in as a darkeyes, wearing a dress with a proper safehand sleeve or even wearing a glove here in the middle of summer was going to draw attention she didn't want. She had almost gotten used to seeing the other girls with their safehands uncovered, but it still made her somewhat uncomfortable.

Hermione saw the gesture and smiled sympathetically. Shallan had tried to explain Vorinism to the others and, while they didn't fully understand, they tried to be respectful. “You know, there are everyday robes with long, wide sleeves. If we find you robes with sleeves that are a little too long you can probably keep your hand hidden.”

Shallan shrugged. That would be better than having to wear short sleeves like the other girls, but it still wasn't the same... She wasn't good enough with English to try to explain the distinction though, so she let it go with a sigh. They weren't ready for the trip yet anyway, so she still had time to talk herself into it.

They spent the rest of the day working on designs for faces for Shallan and Sirius to wear that were close enough to their real faces that the illusion would be hard to detect, common enough that they wouldn't stand out, and, in Sirius's case, different enough that he wouldn't be recognized. They also experimented with how much stormlight/wandlight Pattern needed to maintain an illusion on another person and how long they could expect it to hold. Through all of it, Shallan detached herself from the idea of actually making the trip and focused on it as an abstraction and scholarly question.

That night, as she sat on her bed brushing out her hair with only Patten for company, Shallan finally allowed herself to grapple with her feelings about going out to acquire a wand.

“I can't just stay in this house. I can not. I won't let myself be locked away and hidden by anyone or anything, even my own sensibilities. And, well, it also bothers me that they are keeping Sirius hidden away here. I know his situation is different, but I also at least somewhat understand what it's like and it's not ok. But at the same time, even with Hermione's explanations,I don't know the local culture or how to blend in andto go out with my safehand uncovered... Pattern, I don't know what to do...”

“Mmmmm,” Pattern buzzed, “Hermione said that the robes should be able to hide your hand, yes? And the people here wouldn't pay any attention to it anyway...”

Shallan sighed, looked down at the bed, and wrapped her arms around herself,“Yes, but... that's not the point. Iwould know that it wasn't properly covered and, in addition to it feeling wrong, it would be a distraction.”

Pattern bobbed around confused “Mmmm, if the sleeve will cover your hand anyway, why can't you wear your glove?”

Shallan raised her eyebrows as she looked up slowly. “That, Pattern, is a very good question.”

A couple of days later, Shallan, Hermione, and Sirius were all reasonably happy with the disguises and the plan. At one point they considered getting approval from the Order for their trip, but decided it would be better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Everyone seemed strangely determined to keep Sirius locked up in the house. They had the twins, who were happy for any excuse to cause mischief, create a distraction that allowed Shallan and Sirius to sneak out of the house. Hermione summoned the Knight Bus for them and they set off for the Leaky Cauldron and Diagon Alley. It was a busy enough day at the Leaky that they had no trouble casually waiting for someone to open the passage to the Alley and then following them through.

Their first stop was Gringotts and, as they made their way there, Shallan looked around the street in wonder. She itched to pull out her sketchbook and to begin recording everything she saw, but constrained herself to frequently blinking and taking memories to draw later. Hermione had warned Shallan about the goblins, but she still did a double take when she saw the first one as they arrived at the bank. Sirius presented the key to the Black family vault to one of the tellers and they were able to retrieve the money they would need (and quite a bit more) with no difficulty. Shallan was none too sure about the cart ride to and from the vault and the whole idea of the bank was strange to her - spheres were far too useful to lock away in a vault somewhere. She coped, as usual, by reminding herself to view everything as a scholar and took copious mental notes about the system and stored a few images to draw later.

After leaving the bank, Sirius guided them farther down the street to the Ollivander's. As they walked into the wandshop, Shallan looked around and turned to Sirius in confusion, “Is there no one here?” Sirius shook his head, but before he could answer an old man with a deeply lined face and fluffy white hair suddenly appeared in front of them with wide peering eyes, “Sirius Black. I can't say I expected to see you here.”

Shallan stumbled back a step as her heart started racing. He can see through my illusion. We didn't plan for this...

At this point Ollivander's attention turned to Shallan and his eyebrows flew up. He glanced back curious to Sirius, “Not only did you manage to move unnoticed through the Alley, you also have a companion who is, shall we say, not from around here...”

Sirius rolled his eyes,“Yeah, yeah. My friend is why we are here. She needs a wand. Though, I could use a new one too if you are willing to sell me one.”

Ollivander looked over Sirius pensively, “Yes, I suppose you could. Such a shame. Whatever happened to it?”

Sirius gave a half shrug, “Not really sure.”

“Mmm, I see.” Ollivander nodded to his tape measure which leapt up and slithered toward Sirius. “Your right hand is still your wand hand?”

“So far as I know.”

After several failed fits, Ollivander turned to Sirus, “Here, try this one. Dogwood and dragon heartstring, 9 ¼ inches, rigid.”

As Sirius took the wand it let out a loud bark and released a puff of black smoke that swirled and resolved itself into a black dog with an energetically wagging tail. Sirius grinned broadly. “Ah, this will do quite well.”

Ollivander nodded and turned to examine Shallan as he muttered about dogwood not usually being literally related to dogs. “And which is your wand hand?”

The tape measure slithered over to her and began take all sorts of measurements as Ollivander moved around the shop collecting wand boxes. As the tape measure finshed and made its way back to its home on the counter, he returned to Shallan and began handing her wands to test, telling her about each wand and its potential strengths as he did. None in the first batch gave any reaction, though there were a few that Shallan felt the same almost vibration from that she noticed the first time she held Fred's wand. While Ollivander returned to shelves to collect more wands for her to try, Shallan heard a soft buzzing over his mutterings.

“Mmmmm....patterns...”

Shallan narrowed her eyes and looked toward Sirius who had Pattern hiding on his robes, I thought Pattern agreed to stay quiet, but she asked quietly anyway,“What patterns?”

“In the wands. Some like you better than others. The fir ones...”

Shallan took a deep breath and then cut in to Ollivander's running commentary, “Um, sir, the fir wands have felt closer to right than the others.”

He froze and Shallan spent several uncomfortable moments with him blinking at her before he was off digging through his store of wands again. “Let's see... Let's see... maybe... yes... Here try this one, 10 and a half inch, surprisingly springy fir and unicorn hair.”

This time when she tentatively took the wand, the tip burst into brilliant light.

“Interesting, Interesting... Fir... You must be stronger than you look.” Ollivander peered intently at her, “A survior's wand, particularly inclined toward transfiguration... That will be seven Galleons each for the two wands.”

While Shallan was still trying to figure out how to respond to the disconcerting shopkeeper, Sirius handed over the Galleons and gently guided her out of the shop.   

Note: I had a hard time getting this chapter right.  I'm reasonably happy with it now, but I would also be happy to have feedback :-) I hope you enjoyed it!

Here, have another of Iredomi's poems!  The text can be found in his original post here on sebrukiscrossbow. 

Dear Cfsbf, 

It has come to my attention that the current logo used on the Coppermind (our wiki for all things Sanderson) was intended as a stopgap measure when it was added five years ago. We are planning to finally fix this and to do a redesign of the main page of the wiki. If you would be interested in helping/being part of this conversation (you don’t have to know about wikis), please reply to this post or shoot us an ask over at harmonys-coppermind :-) Any interest?

Ok.  Completely new post because the other one keeps reverting to the cut off version.  This is my interpretation of Shallan's Lullaby from Words of Radiance. So far as I am aware the tune doesn't belong to anything else.

Shallan's Journey: Chapter 4, In Which Pattern Gets to Play

This morning started as the last few had, with Shallan meeting the others for breakfast and then returning to the library to study English with the girls while Molly tried to wrangle the boys into helping her clean the house. Today, however, there was something going on that called Molly out of the house and left the kids to their own devices. Sirius was still home, of course, but he spent most of his time upstairs moping with Buckbeak and when he did come out was rather more likely to cause mischief than to be a responsible adult. As the oldest Weasleys left in the house, Fred and George had decided this meant they had free rein to do as their hearts desired. Naturally, this meant that Ginny had bright green hair and Hermione's pens were dancing away from her every time she reached for one. A few minutes ago, Hermione had finally snapped and begun laying into the twins about how irresponsible they were being and trying to insist that they set everything to rights and then leave them alone. Ginny had joined in and now there was a full scale argument making it difficult for Shallan to think. She narrowed her eyes as she contemplated the best way to handle this.

Shallan had been reluctant to use any of the moderate supply of stormlight she had brought with her in case she ended up really needing it later, but she decided that it probably wouldn't hurt anything to use a small bit of it. She flipped to a clean page of her notebook and drew out a fierce image of Molly shaking her finger along with a few other quick sketches that would allow the image to move. “Pattern,” she whispered, “would you like to startle them?” Pattern buzzed excitedly in response, but Shallan quickly shushed him. “We are going to sneak out into the hall where I'm going to attach an image of their mother to you and then...” she continued to whisper instructions as they sneaked around the argument and out into the hall. She infused Pattern with stormlight and triggered the illusion before quickly slipping back into the room to watch the results.

She had just gotten back to the table when Molly's voice boomed from the door, “Fred! George! What is the meaning of this?! I told you to leave the girls alone!”

Everyone immediately froze and looked toward the door while Fred and George jumped away from the others, “Mum!” “We didn't know” “you were” “already back!” “Of course” “we were” “being nice” “to the girls” “anyway, but...” they trailed off in confusion as the image of their mother flickered out and died and they noticed Shallan trying and failing to hide her snickering.

Ginny was the first to figure out what must have happened, “Whoa! You can do wandless magic? That was a really impressive illusion! How did you do it? What else can you do?!”

Shallan shrugged. She was getting much better at understanding English, but was still shaky when it came that fast and still not particularly confident speaking it herself. “It is... not your magic... Ummm...” she pulled out the sphere she had already pulled some of the stormlight from. “I am a...” she searched briefly for an appropriate English word and gave up “lightweaver, so I use these,” she held up the sphere, “to... to make things.”

Hermione began bouncing on her toes, “Oh! But that's fascinating! May I see it?” She held out her hand in question. Shallan handed the sphere to her and Hermione examined it carefully. “Oh wow. That looks like an emerald! And it glows... Can you show us how you do it?”

Shallan nodded, “Sure,” as she took the sphere back, “um, what should I make?”

Ginny grinned at her, “Can you show us your boyfriend?”

Shallan gave her a slightly sad smile and turned to her notebook to draw out the sketch of Adolin that she would need for the illusion. She breathed more of the stormlight in from the sphere so that she was just slightly glowing and breathed it out as she created an illusion of Adolin standing there grinning at them in his impeccable Kholin blue uniform. Storms. She had been so caught up in dealing with everything that, even when telling the girls about people from Roshar, she hadn't realized how much she missed him. Seeing her illusion standing there now though... It looked just like him, of course, except that the storming man never stood that still...

She sighed and buried her head in her arms on the table as she wondered what Adolin and Jasnah and the all of the others were doing. She knew Jasnah wouldn't give up on her, but, storms, she didn't know where she was, how did Jasnah have any chance? A gentle touch on her shoulder pulled her back and she looked up to see that Ginny had slid into the seat next to her and was now giving her a concerned look. Shallan didn't have the English to fully explain, so she just shrugged as she whispered, “I miss them.” She let Ginny pull her into a hug as she put herself back together. It wasn't easy, but then nothing in her life ever seemed to be.

The others looked on somewhat helplessly as Ginny comforted Shallan. Hermione desperately cast about for a distraction. She wasn't good at these things like Ginny was, but she did know that her own usual response to being upset was to throw herself into a project. From her interactions with Shallan over the last few days, she figured there was a good chance that Shallan was the same way. Her eyes flew around the room for inspiration and finally lit on the wand that Fred was holding loosely at his side. “Oh! Of course!” She blushed as everyone immediately turned to look at her, “Well, it just occurred to me that we know Shallan has something like magical abilities, but we haven't done anything to test whether she can use our magic.” She looked beseechingly up at Fred, “Could Shallan borrow your wand for a minute, just so we can see if she can use it?”

Ginny rolled her eyes at Hermione,“Really? You think this is what we should be doing right now?” In the mean time, Pattern had buzzed over to Shallan and explained what Hermione was suggesting. Shallan gave Ginny a small smile, “It's ok, I want to know too,” and then looked eagerly over to Hermione. This was good. As long as she didn't think about home she would be fine. Pattern would probably fuss at her later for having too many lies, but it wasn't like there was anything productive she could do.

Fred shrugged curiously and handed Shallan his wand, “Just be careful with with.” Shallan nodded seriously as she reached to accept it, “I will.” When her hand closed around the handle, her eyes widened and she stared down at the wand. She swore she could almost feel it vibrating. “Pattern, what is this thing? It looks like a fancy stick, but...”

“Mmmm, it says it is a wand.”

“Well, yes, that is what they told us, but what is it?”

Pattern seemed to shrug. Shallan could never quite figure out how his twisting mass of lines mimicked human gestures, but he managed it some how. “It says it is a wand.”

Shallan rolled her eyes. Sticks, even fancy, magical sticks, were hopeless. She looked back up at her new friends. “Sorry. I was...distracted.”

Hermione smiled, “That's ok. Do you feel anything from the wand?” Shallan pursed her lips, “Yes, but I don't have the words...”

“Ok, well, let's try something. Your magic system seems to involve light, so let's start there.” Hermione grabbed a pencil, “You move the wand like this and say 'lumos' and the tip of the wand should light up.”

Shallan tried unsuccessfully. She gave a slight sigh. There was no promise this was going to work, and even if it did, she shouldn't have been expecting it to work on the first try. George pulled out his own wand and stepped over to her. “First off you should be holding the wand like this,” he held his wand out in front of him so that she could see and imitate. “Then you move it like this.” He demonstrated the motion and the encouraged her to do it with him, “You don't want to whip the wand around too fast, but you do want a nice smooth motion.” They practiced the motion a couple of times before George was satisfied. “Now, when you get to this point in the motion, you say 'lumos'”. George demonstrated and the tip of his wand lit up. Shallan concentrated as she tried again and, to her delight, the wand tip actually lit this time! Interestingly, casting the spell almost felt like pushing stormlight into something...

She grinned before narrowing her eyes briefly at the wand in contemplation and then laying it carefully on the table. She grabbed her sketchbook and drew out a quick sketch of an axehound. She picked the wand, still lit, back up and, imagining that the light on the end of the wand was stormlight, pushed it out into an illusion of an axehound.

Shallan's whoop of victory was drowned out by Ginny's shriek. Even though she knew on some level that it was just an illusion, she leapt backwards and her voice trembled slightly as she squeeked out, “What is that thing?! It looks like something Hagrid would love...” The twins examined the new image excitedly and Hermione looked it over cautiously. Shallan grinned at them, “It's just an axehound. My brother,” her voice caught slightly, but she pushed it away and kept going, “my brother used to raise them. We keep them as pets back home.”

Having recovered from sudden appearance of the strange creature, Hermione looked back up at Shallan with eyes shining in excitement, “Regardless of what it is, you made it with Fred's wand instead of one of your glowing marbles! We have to get you a wand!”

At this point Ron wandered into the room, “What is all the screaming about?” Ginny gave her brother an unreadable look and pointed at the axehound in the corner. “Oh bloody hell!” He scrambled back towards the door. “That thing has way too many legs! Did Hagrid stop by?”

Ginny smirked at him. Her brother's reaction helped her get past her own, “Nope. Shallan used Fred's wand to create it. It is apparently like a dog where she comes from.”

Ron shook his head. “No way anyone would keep something like that as a pet.”

Ginny rolled her eyes, “I know we wouldn't, but if you grew up with them they would seem normal.”

“If that thing is normal, her world must be completely creepy.”

“Ron! Shallan is right here! If you can't be nice you can just bugger off again.”

Ron threw his hands up in the air and grumbled as he stormed off, “The crazy alien girl shows up with creepy creatures and suddenly she is all anyone cares about....”

Ginny shook her head as she turned back to Shallan. “I'm sorry about my brother. He isn't good at accepting new things.” Shallan nodded with a sigh. “I understand. I also have several brothers and, umm.. they are not always exactly...” she trailed off. She did not want to try to explain her family.

Hermione cut in, “Let's go find Sirius. Maybe he will know how we can get Shallan her own wand.” She led them farther up the house than Shallan had yet been. “You've met Sirius at dinner a few times, but he tends to keep to himself. I don't think he's very happy here.”

As they entered the room, Shallan's eyes were immediately drawn to the large creature in the room. Hermione had immediately turned to talk to Sirius, but Ginny caught Shallan's arm before she could rush over to it. “Whoa, Shallan. Buckbeak is friendly, but you have to meet him properly. Like this.”

She walked slowly until she was in Buckbeak's direct line of sight and then bowed. Buckbeak blinked at her and returned the bow, so she stepped in to stroke his neck.

While Shallan was watching this, Pattern buzzed up beside her “Is that a horse chicken?”

“I don't know anymore than you do, but it certainly looks like it. Storms. And they thought my axehound was strange...” Ginny gestured for Shallan to come closer and bow. It took a little longer this time for Buckbeak to respond, but he eventually did and Shallan stepped closer to join Ginny in stroking his neck. “Ginny, what kind of creature is Buckbeak?” Ginny looked at her slightly surprised, but then shook her head, “I guess you wouldn't know, would you... Buckbeak is a hippogriff.”

Shallan frowned as she examined him. “He can't be happy in this room. Does he even have space to stretch his wings?” Ginny sighed. “I think so? The reason he is here is complicated.” Shallan was distracted from her thoughts by the sound of her name.

“Hey, Shallan!” Hermione called. Shallan promised Buckbeak she would be back later, he was a fascinating creature, and walked over to Hermione and Sirius. “Can you show Sirius your axehound?”

She still had Fred's wand so she nodded as she carefully lit it with Lumos and then pushed the light from the wand into the image. Behind her she heard Buckbeak snort and Ginny calm him.

Sirius raised his eyebrows. “That's a mighty unusual way to use magic.”

Shallan shrugged. “It works.”

“Ah, that it does.”

Hermione cut in impatiently, “Do you see why we need to get her a wand? It's silly for her not to have one when she is capable of that!”

Shallan looked at them, “How would I get one?”

Sirius frowned at her, “That's the question, isn't it. I have more money than I know what to do with, so that's not a problem, but people usually get a wand by going to Ollivander's, and I'm not sure how we are going to get you to Diagon Alley. I'd take you, but Dumbledore won't let me leave the house.”

“Why not?”

“I was accused of a crime I didn't commit. You see...” he proceeded to explain the mess his life had been since the decision to make Peter the real secret keeper. At the end of his story he shook his head “I don't know why I'm telling you all of this. It can't be very interesting.”

Pattern buzzed appreciatively “Mmmm... so many layers of lies...I like this one...He would fit with your guards back on Roshar.” Shallan laughed helplessly at Pattern's comment. “He would, wouldn't he...Oh why do I keep finding myself in this kind of position...” She looked back over to Sirius. “I, ah, might be able to help with a disguise that would let you go out without being caught.”

Sirius's eyes lit up at the idea of being able to escape the house, but Hermione cautiously chimed in, “We'll have to make sure it holds long enough and isn't easily dispelled.”

Sirius wilted when Shallan nodded, but looked back up slightly hopeful when she added. “Yes, but we can test it. If we have enough light, I think it could work.”

Sisters

After some thought, she decided that the concept of loving siblings was a little like the Allomantic pulse lengths she was supposed to be looking for - they were just too unfamiliar for her to understand at the moment.

Oh, Vin. Your brother may have helped you survive, but he was a horrible, horrible brother. And she HAD a baby sister that their mom killed.  I can't even...

Vin still needs to have Lift as a little sister.  Then, one night when Shallan is out on a mission as Veil she needs to come across them and bring them in off the streets and eventually be accepted into their little group as the big sister. She would try to tame them somewhat and teach them things like writing, but they would spend just as much time corrupting Shallan.  They would create an alter-ego for Lift so that the Ladies Davar, Valette and [I'm still trying to come up with a good name] could go out together, but they would also create a third alter-ego for Shallan (beacuse they wouldn't want the ghostbloods to recognize Veil) so that they could sneak out in the streets together.

Now I really want to know if burning copper affects lightweaving at all... Can Vin see through lightweaving if she is burning copper? or maybe if she is burning tin? hmmm.... Also, if Shallan weaves a disguise for another Radiant, can they maintain it with their stormlight even if they aren't a light weaver?