Character from Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
The Shard of stasis and protection — a dying god who sacrificed its own mind to imprison Ruin, leaving behind the mists and Allomancy as final weapons for the champion it knew would come.
Preservation speaks in fragments by the time of the series — broken sentences, repeated words, desperate attempts to communicate through a mind shattered by its own sacrifice. It gave up a significant portion of its power to create the prison at the Well of Ascension, leaving itself weaker than Ruin and slowly dying. Its intent is preservation, stasis, protection — it wants nothing to change, nothing to end, nothing to be lost. This makes it Ruin's perfect opposite and perfect complement. It created Allomancy as a weapon system specifically designed to counter Ruin's Hemalurgy. Its greatest act was choosing Vin as its successor — not because she was the most powerful, but because she would do what Preservation itself could not: act decisively, destroy Ruin, and accept that preservation sometimes requires sacrifice. Leras, the man who held the Shard, was consumed by its intent just as Ati was consumed by Ruin's.
Manifests as the mists themselves — a vast, silver-white presence that blankets the world at night. When appearing in humanoid form, takes the shape of a small, translucent figure made of white mist, barely coherent, fading. In its final days appears as a weak, confused spirit that can barely communicate. The mists are literally its body, dispersed across the entire planet.
Also known as: Leras, The Mist Spirit