(New) Guardians Prologue

My grandmother has always been a great storyteller. She could weave words into a picture so vivid that anyone who would listen saw it. It was almost as if you were sitting there watching the events unfold.
Nice description sets the scene well
I never saw my grandmother much, I still don't, but every time I would visit her she would tell a story. A story so filled with magic that it could never have actually happened, even though she swears to its truth.

I remember sitting on the floor while she sat in her favorite rocking chair, while she spoke the words I can recite to this day.

"Long ago, before the land we know today came to be, there were ten countries on this land. These ten countries all had their own governments, their own races. Also there exsisted a small island of Arnivia just out of sight of the Land of the Ten Countries. It was never seen. One day it was told that the small land had disappeared. Everyone thought maybe it had never existed, that it was only a story, so it went unnoticed." the old woman brushed her long grey hair behind her ear, as was her custom, as she told the familiar story.

My grandmother always told the story the same way but it never grew old, you still found that peaceful picture of a place from long ago in your mind.

"All of the countries lived peacefully together, never a war, never any trouble at all. Though all ten countries were different they lived side by side in harmony. Until one dark day, on that day doors were opened."

The old woman leaned forward, as if the locations of these doors were sacred information and never to be spoken above a wisper.

"One deep in the fiery mountains where people pulled fire from the very soul of the rock. One hidden in the mysterious forests, so hidden that it escaped the soft melodies of the small faries that play amongst the trees. And the last submerged in the peaceful ocean, protected by the stong and wise merpeople." Maybe you could of refered to the countries having fairies in earier into the Chapter because when you say "goverments" you give the impression that this is a modern civilisation, and not a magical kingdom. You need to make it slightly more clearer
You could see the doors in each location. You could almost feel the heat of the fiery mountains, hear the soft melodies of the faries fading away, and see the merpeople who were strong and wise.

She left the wisper, but still leaned forward. Sounding more ominous as the story went on.

"Out of these doors escaped shadows. These shadows were the lost Arnivians. The very people that no one thought ever exsisted." she paused.

She grew quieter and the picture grew more sinister as she wove the words around your head. "What no one knew was that a great darkness had blanketed Arnivia. It had swallowed the land and pulled it behind the doors until the darkness was strong enough. The darkness stole the souls of the Arnivians and turned them to shadows, the most evil and dark beings you could ever imagine."

Sometimes she would only tell this part to me, my little brother Nolen being too young to hear such frightening stories.

My grandmother never lost the true essence of the story as she told it, though you could see in her eyes how much it affected her.

"When the three doors were opened, these shadows escaped from the shadowy realm they had been stolen to. The Arnivians were no more, the hope and love their souls had held so long was finally destroyed. They only help anger and evil in their shadowy exsistance. The darkness that had stolen them now overcame the Land of the Ten Countries and the shadows left a path of destruction across the land."

A hatred came over my grandmother's face as she spoke. She truely hated the evil, and you felt you had to truely hate it too.

"They were all lead by one nameless man. This man was the only Arnivian who still appeared human, the darkness had spared him that but held him for a greater purpose. The nameless leader had bestowed upon him a great power, greater than any power known to those of the Land of the Ten Countries. One day it was told that Arnivia had once again appeared in the sea and a dark castle overtook it. The Land of the Ten Countries did not think of it much until a blanket of shadow could be seen on the sea. The darkness came closer and closer until the shadows were covering the Land of the Ten Countries. The evil covered the land, it reached as high as the country of Ancestia and as low as the greatest depths of the country of Oceanica, and destroyed everything in its path. Soon the shadows would be the only thing left."

I would sit in anticipation and fear, waiting to hear what was next even though I knew what was coming.

The picture took on a hopeful demeanor but you could also feel a great amount of stress and fear.

"The king of the most powerful country, Ascensia, formulated a plan. He called for the strongest of each country to make his way to the Great Ascensian City. He knew that only the strongest man would make it through the shadows to his castle. He was surprised though when the strongest arrived, the ten were strangely similar." Try and not have names of places similar like Ascensia and Arnivian, although they may be okay for you, for the reader it can be confusing
"Ooo, ooo, I know how they were alike!" Nolen would jump in every time.

Our grandmother would always respond the same way. "Now young Nolen. If you take the story away from the storyteller, you are taking away their life. A storyteller lives their story, now may I finish?"

It always sent him into obediant silence.

"Well first, they were all young women of twenty years, which startled the king greatly. His Highness could not comprehend how ten young women could make it through the shadows. But when he found that they possessed powers extraordinarily beyond what was common at the time he knew they were the only ones who could save the Land of the Ten Counties."

She looked at Nolen to make sure she got it right, making amends like always.

"He ordered special armor to be made and unique swords to be forged in a great city beneath the mountains. These swords were made to channel a special magical energy that would be useful to the ten ladies. When they were prepared, the ladies rode into battle."

She paused. When she started telling the story again any listener would almost think they were there riding into battle themselves. It was clear this was her favorite part of the story.

She leaned in and her voice would gather the intensity of the words and her voice would move swiftly from soft wispers to loud exclimations with the path of the story.

"The ladies used their power to ride directly across the sea to Arnivia. When they reached the castle it was heavily guarded, but it took them no longer than a few minutes to destroy the guards and enter the great hall of the King of the shadows. The King of Shadows was appalled when he saw that the Land of the Ten Countries thought so little of him that they would send ten young women to defeat him. He laughed in their faces and made jests at the King of Ascencia. But he was quickly shown his error in judgement. From these ladies eminated an energy so pure, so perfectly good, that no evil could withstand it. They literally glowed with the great power, the light of their power almost visibly spilled off of them. They were ready to defeat him. He tried to escape to save his life, clearly he had not been prepared for this sort of power."

The old woman paused, a sparkle in her eye and a smile at the edge of her lips.

"The Ladies of the Light surrounded him and expelled the shadows from his heart. The ladies together used their power to lock away the shadows behind the doors that had been opened. They then broke the key into ten pieces to hide throughout the Land of the Ten Countries. When the Ladies of the Light returned to the Great Ascensian City they were greatly honored. Bestowed upon them were ten amulets of different colors and were then named guardians of the new world."

The story always pleased her so. She would smile almost triumphantly and you could feel the overwhelming happiness in the story.

"The ten countries then came together to form one country of Ascensia, and the province which had been the country of Ascensia regained a form of its old name as the province of Lindai. Before long, the Guardians grew old and felt they were not suited for protecting Ascensia any longer. They met in a sacred place known only to the ten of them and placed their power into their amulets. These amulets where then passed down through their families. To their daughters, then their daughters’ daughters, and so on and so forth." The old woman told as she had so many times before.

"And that's how I got mine!" I exclaimed as I did every time I heard the story.

"Yes young Natura." she would say lovingly. "Even though it is usually passed from mother to daughter I pass mine from grandmother to granddaughter. And you are so young, it is rare for one to receive it so early."

"That's because I'm special." I always demanded proudly.

"Yes young one. You are very special." she would say quietly, almost to herself, with a knowing look in her eyes which I never took for much more than a grandmothers love.

"What happened to the Guardians next?" I would ask.

"Well. The time came for them to pass on to the next world. They prepared to meet their ancestors in the spirit land. They were suprised when they did not enter the spirit land, but were left in this world as silent protectors. Remaining as Guardians as they had always loved to be." she finished.

That story amazed me when I was still young enough to believe fairytales, when I could believe that there had been such an evil, and such a power to destroy it. I believed that my necklace was more than an old family heirloom.

I would almost brag the story to others. Telling them of how things used to be, of how magic was the center of everyday life and not just a small unnoticable part like now.

I lived on how I would someday be a Guardian, I had the amulet so I had to. It held my spirits high and gave me a dream to live for.

But as I grew I soon came to realize that the Guardians were nothing more than a story to keep a young child satisfied. I now know that it's just a polished green stone set in a small ring of gold on a leather string, with a small metal clasp holding it together.

I let that dream die, I let the magic my grandmother taught me fall to the side. I let the story become just that, a story.

The day I stopped letting my grandmother tell the story she had just looked at me with the familiar knowing sparkle in her eye and said "A storyteller lives their story and their story lives until the end. This story isn't done living, you can't just give it an end when it's not the end."

That puzzled me, but it could not fight my overwhelming sense that my amulet never had and never will hold any unknown power and that I would never become a Guardian.

Im glad you made a present-past transition it makes the story much easier to read, and i hope you made a second chapter.