Who can see Preservation?

Question

Warning: untagged spoilers from The Hero of Ages, book 3 in the Mistborn trilogy, may follow.

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It has been established that only those with Hemalurgic spikes can see and hear the god Ruin: Spook and Quellion could both see the figure they thought of as 'Kelsier' right up until Spook removed their spikes, and Vin could see and hear him as long as she kept her earring in, but his voice was instantly cut off when Marsh removed it.

This makes sense in a way, since Hemalurgy is the power of Ruin: only those who have been spiked, and are therefore susceptible to his influence at least to some degree, are able to perceive his presence. But it still leaves the question of who could see and hear Ruin's opposite number, the god Preservation.

The obvious answer would be "Allomancers", but I don't think this can be it. If I recall correctly, Preservation, or "the mist spirit" as they thought of him then, appeared to Elend during The Well of Ascension, before he became an Allomancer. So:

are there any restrictions on who can see and hear Preservation, and if so, what are they?

Answer 1

Since Preservation is dead, there's not much information to go on except the handful of encounters we saw in the first trilogy.

Based on that, it seems that anyone could "see" the mist spirit, because it was a physical manifestation of Preservation via the mists. Preservation was using his power to create something tangible in the real world.

However, I believe that at one point, Vin "heard" Preservation talking to her, once she removed her earring and took the mists into herself. This is similar to how Ruin and Harmony talk to people: directly in their minds, that no one else can hear. Being in direct contact with the mists appears to be what allowed this to happen.

Note that this lines up exactly with how people "hear" Ruin: the spikes are Hemalurgy, the magic of Ruin. So anyone who is in contact with the "manifestation" of Hemalurgy, even the tiniest bit (like Vin's earring) can hear Ruin. It would make sense that anyone who can "make contact" with the manifestation of Allomancy (the mists) could hear Preservation. The key difference is, anyone can use Hemalurgy if they have a spike, but only Allomancers can use Allomancy.

Answer 2

This is some minor spoilers for the second era mistborn novels, but...

In Shadows of Self, I recall Sazed telling Wax that he could speak to him through the power of Ruin, and hear him through the power of Preservation. It has been said that Hemalurgy puts "cracks" in a recipient's spirit (people who are insane seem to have a similar condition). Ruin has the power to speak to someone like this; Preservation does not.

This, however, is in reference specifically to how Ruin can speak to people. There are many, many other ways that either Ruin or Preservation could be perceived by someone.

For example, there is the mist spirit. This was visible, I suspect, because it was literally a physical thing. There was no magic involved in seeing it, Elend just saw it with his eyes. Preservation and Ruin's powers were mostly balanced, but I imagine preservation was at least strong enough to form a physical manifestation, especially just a shape in the mist like that.

Also note that in the cognitive realm you can converse freely with either shard. If that statement makes no sense disregard it, there will be spoilers if you try to make sense of it.