Preservation

Template:ShardInfobox Preservation is a Shard of Adonalsium. Its has bonded with Leras, Vin and Sazed.

Intent

Preservation seeks to provide stability. It seeks to preserve the world and its inhabitants.

Associated magic

Preservation fuels Allomancy, one of the three Metalic Arts on Scadrial. The solid form of Preservation's power, a metal known as lerasium, grants the powers of a Mistborn to those who ingest it. It creates other, unknown effects when a Mistborn burns it.^{[citation needed]}

Lore

The deal and betrayal

Preservation and Ruin, the two Shards on Scadrial, struck a deal to create sentient life on the planet. Preservation would have a sliver more of itself in humans, but Ruin would be allowed to destroy the world.

Preservation broke the terms of the agreement by sacrificing his mind to create a prison for Ruin's mind, preventing him from destroying the world. Furthermore, in an attempt to balance the power (since some of Preservation was now stored in humanity), he sequestered away a portion of Ruin's power in the metal atium. The Well of Ascension, Preservation's liquid essence, was created to contain Ruin.^{[citation needed]}

The mists of Scadrial were left behind by Preservation to awaken Allomancy in the inhabitants of Scadrial, albeit in a violent way. The mists were encouraged by Ruin to choke off sunlight to the land, and were named the Deepness since they prevented food from growing. They also provided power to enhance Allomancy by Vin, hundreds of years later.

The Lord Ruler and the release of Ruin

Rashek took up the power in the Well to prevent the release of Ruin, and used it to reshape the world of Scadrial in an attempt to get rid of the mists. Rashek was not very delicate with the power, moving the world too close to the sun and having to make constant adjustments to compensate. Preservation's intent can seen here, as he could not destroy, only change.

Ruin was released from his prison accidentally by Vin 1024 years later, and he immediately went on a rampage to destroy Scadrial. The remnants of Preservation's mind was destroyed by Ruin, resulting in the death of Leras. His body fell out of the mists and into the ash.

The death of Ati

After Leras died, the Shard was taken up by Kelsier for a very short time. He gave up the power to Vin following her battle with Marsh. The reasons why Vin was able to take the power remain shrouded in mystery (even to Sazed after he took up the Shard). When Marsh killed Elend, Vin realized she had nothing more to live for, and killed herself and took Ati (Ruin's Shardholder) with her.

The end of Ruin was Preservation's plan all along. He needed someone new, and therefore not molded to Preservation's intent, to make the sacrifice needed to destroy Ruin. Leras spent too much time holding the Preservation Shard, and was thus unable to act against its intent.

Sazed picked up both Preservation and Ruin following Vin's sacrifice, and is the current holder of both Shards.

Appearance

It is unknown whether Shardholders had the ability to change their appearance, but Leras's corpse was described by Sazed as being short with black hair and a prominent nose.