Preservation

Template:ShardInfobox Preservation was a Shard of Adonalsium. Its original Shardholder was Leras, but has since bonded with Vin and Sazed. It was folded together with Ruin to become the shard of Harmony.^{[citation needed]}

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. When burned by a Mistborn or Misting, it drastically increases their powers.

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. After sacrificing his mind to trap Ruin, Preservation manifested itself as the mist spirit whenever it wished to influence events directly.

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 Collapse

When Alendi travelled to the Well of Ascension, Preservation attempted to stop him, and in attempting to do so, murdered one of Alendi's travelling companions. Afterward, 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. He was not very delicate with the power, starting with 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.

Preservation once again attempted to stop someone from giving up the power at the Well when Vin journeyed there when the Well refilled. Prior to this, Preservation had appeared to Vin on multiple occasions during the Siege of Luthadel, and to Sazed as he and Tindwyl were studying Kwaan's inscription, found in the Conventical of Seran, where it tore out a specific section of pages in order to attempt to give them a clue about the power at the Well. Elend when he, Vin and Spook were travelling to the Terris Dominance. Vin released Ruin accidentally, and it immediately went on a rampage to destroy Scadrial. Preservation wounded Elend in an attempt to get Vin to use the power, but when this failed, it showed her the last remaining lerasium bead in order to save Elend's life.

During the Siege of Fadrex, Preservation appeared one final time to Elend after seeing him almost ready to give up when escorting a large group of captured koloss back to Fadrex. By this time, Preservation was too weak to perform any significant actions and could only vaguely communicate with Elend, and shortly afterward, the remnants of its mind were destroyed by Ruin, and Leras, fell out of the mists and into the ash as he died.

In the days of the Breaking, Preservation sent the mists during the day to touch all of humanity, in a countermove to Ruin being freed from the Well and utilizing the Inquisitors and koloss to destroy. With the kandra guarding the Trust of atium and the Pits of Hathsin destroyed, there were no other atium caches for Inquisitors or Mistborn to gain control of. Preservation made the mistsickness affect a sixteenth of Elend's army; sixteen metals, of which atium was one. Just prior to the last battle between the human and koloss armies, Elend and his army reached the kandra Homeland, and Ruin's body: the atium stash. Elend realized that the one sixteenth of his army that were Mistfallen were all atium Mistings. Preservation planned the hundreds of new atium Mistings to burn the atium, and thus denying Ruin from gaining access to its own power.

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 assaulted Ruin, killing both Ati and herself in the process.

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, and was thus unable to act against its intent.

Sazed took up both Preservation and Ruin following Vin's sacrifice, and became the holder of both Shards following these events. He used the power contained by both Shards to reshape the world and fix the damage incurred by Rashek during his time with the power, and Ruin's final attempt to destroy Scadrial.