The Girl Who Looked Up

The Girl Who Looked Up, according to Shallan, was a girl before storms, before memories, and before legends.
Again, according to Shallan, the girl played and danced, as girls do to this day. Further, Shallan says that most things were the same then as they are today. Except for one big difference. The wall.
In those days, this wall had kept out the storms, Shallan states. Further, that it had existed for so long, nobody knew how it had been built. This didn't bother those people in that time.
Wit reveals to Shallan that in those days, there was no light. Further, that even without light, people still had to live. So they lived in the darkness, farmed in the darkness, ate in the darkness. The people stumbled about in their village, feeling their way to different activities, barely able to see by the starlight.
Still, the girl looked up at the wall and asked some of those people why there was a wall, what bad things was it to keep out, and what was it to protect them from. She was told that if she went beyond it she would die.
However, the girl realizes that the wall wasn't to keep something in, but to keep her and her people out.
Wit reiterates this, telling Shallan that the wall kept people out because beyond the wall was God's Light.
The girl then climbs a tree, peeks out the top, her scarf streaming behind her, and asks a boy sleeping lazily in the nook of a branch why there's a wall. When the boy asks her what wall, the girl points toward the wall. The boy replies that that's not a wall. That it's just the way the sky is over there. The girl then says that it's a wall, a giant wall. The boy then says that it must be there for a purpose and that if she goes beyond it, she'll probably die.
Shallan continues by saying that the answers to the girl's questions didn't satisfy the girl. The girl reasoned to herself, if the wall kept evil things out, then the space on her side of it should be safe.
Even so, the girl sneaked from her home one night with a bundle of supplies. She walked toward the wall, and indeed the land was safe. But it was also dark. Always in the shadow of the wall. No sunlight, ever, directly reached the people.
The girl traveled far, but no predators hunted her, and no storms assaulted her. The only wind was the pleasant one that played with her scarf, and the only creatures she saw were the cremlings that clicked at her as she walked.
At long last, the girl stood before the wall, which was truly expansive, running as far as she could see in either direction.
The girl then climbed. Though there were outcroppings in the wall, she'd climbed the highest trees all through her youth. She could do this.
The climb took days. At night, the girl would tie herself a hammock out of her scarf and sleep there. She picked out her village at one point, remarking on how small it seemed, now that she was high.
As she neared the top, she finally began to fear what she would find on the other side. Unfortunately, this fear didn't stop her. She was young, and questions bothered her more than fear. So it was that she finally struggled to the very top and stood to see the other side. The hidden side.
The girl stood triumphantly on top of the wall, her scarf and white hair streaming out behind her in a sudden wind.
On that side of the wall, Shallan says, the girl saw steps. The back side of the wall was crisscrossed with enormous sets of steps leading down to the ground, so distant.
Yet again, according to Shallan, the girl stared at those steps, and suddenly (to Shallan) the gruesome statues on her own side of the wall within the tower of Urithiru made sense. The spears. The way it cast everything into shadow. The wall did indeed hide something evil, something frightening. It was the people, like the girl and her village.
The girl then went down the steps, and saw a perfect society lit by Stormlight. She stole some and brought it back.
She sneaked up to the Light and brought it back to the land of shadows.
The storms then came as a punishment, tearing down the wall.
The people suffered, but each storm brought light renewed, for it could never be put back, now that it had been taken. And people, for all their hardship, would never choose to go back. Not now that they could see.
==Appearance==
She wore a long scarf to blow in the wind and had white hair.
==Notes==
The Girl Who Looked Up is a story that Shallan reveals to Pattern through her drawings and storytelling while they are both on a theater stage within the tower of Urithiru.
When Pattern asks her whether this was how the storms first began, she tells him of course not. That the story is a lie. That it doesn't mean anything.
He then asks her why she's crying, but she then wipes her eyes and turns away from the empty stage, needing to get back to the markets.
The Girl Who Looked Up is also a story that Wit recalls for Shallan, for which he encourages her to create illusions to accompany it.
When asked if he's ever thought about doing children's books, Brandon replied that they've been thinking of doing a picture book of The Girl Who Looked Up.DragonCon 2019, Atlanta, GA, 8/29/19
When asked whether the girl's hair was long or short, Brandon replied that it was long.Starsight Release Party, Orem, UT, 11/26/19
When Peter was asked on 9/30/20 whether the story of The Girl Who Looked Up was the first instance in which the people from Ashyn, then relocated to Roshar, finally broke free of Shinovar to populate all of Roshar, he replied that all he could say was RAFO.
==Q&A with Brandon==
Q. So the white hair. Did she have white hair or did Shallan just imagine that she had white hair?
A. That is another RAFO.
Q. There are a lot of RAFO's about The Girl Who Looked Up. 
A. There are a lot of RAFO's.
Q. So, the girl who looked up, could her hair change like the royal locks?
A. RAFO.Starsight Release Party, Orem, UT, 11/26/19
==References==
Category:Stories