The Curse of Avgir Lys
or, a clever way to get my first blog post done early this week, and maybe to just generally motivate me.
I've decided to post an excerpt from a story on which I am currently working, which bears the same title as this blog post. Well, it's a working title. It's gone through several titles, as a matter of fact. The original title was, "Forbannelson av det Sort Innsjø", which I got from sticking "the Curse of the Black Lake" into google translate and putting it in Norwegian. (In case you may not have noticed, I kind of have a thing for Norwegian stuff.) I just thought that the curse of the black lake sounded a little mundane in English, and so I just put it in Norwegian and fancied it a creative title. In seventh grade (or was it eighth? No, I think seventh. I think. I don't know if Pavo was there yet or not.), when I published the beginning of this piece in our Creative Writing Club Anthology, our teacher, Mrs. Matthews, decided to put it under its English name, so it has also gone by that.
Recently, when I picked up working on it again in GAT, I decided I wasn't particularly fond of either of the old titles, and so I came up with a mixed-language title that built off the two prior. Being as I now have two Summers of Norwegian Camp under my belt, I have a better comprehension of the Norwegian language and thus, I don't have to rely entirely on google translate as much any more. Which is to say that I know one or two greetings, a handful of numbers, and the basic colors, as well as a quirky children's rhyme or two. I did find it interesting to note that the word for black google translate used (sort) is different from the one we learned at camp (svart), though I was still able to recognize it. We did also talk about dialects at Norwegian Camp, and apparently there are many such variations within the Norwegian language, so I suppose google translate must simply favor a different dialect than our Norwegian teacher grew up with. Going the other way, Norwegian to English, google does indeed translate svart as black, so it's not like google doesn't recognize the other dialects. But in any case, I decided to use the spelling of black in Norwegian with which I had become more familiar, svart, and I used it as the new name of the lake, throwing an e on the end for good measure (even with it, google translate still recognizes the word. I add an e to the end of many words to make them more fantasy like. You may have noticed the Lande beyond the violet mist, for example. It's just, like, olde fashioned, like a shoppe. Though I should note, I've heard some people say olde like old-y, and I believe this is incorrect; in any case it is not my intention to have people pronounce Lande as land-y; the e is just a visual thing I like the look of. Anyways,) and because I used the Norsk for a place name, it gave the Norwegian some actual purpose--one can imagine that the area in which the tale takes place is of Norwegian origin--so it goes beyond just making the name sound cooler. Thus, I named the lake, "Svarte Lake", (which struck me as very catchy) and I retitled the short story/potential novella/probably not a novel "The Curse of Svarte Lake", a title I liked very much.
But then, as time went on, it occured to me that the whole basic premise of the tale was based upon a lake that was very radiant and beautiful and shimmering with magical light which fell under a curse that turned it an illuminous ebony. So, it occurred to me, having the lake named the (or a) Norwegian word for black wasn't actually logical, because the lake was certainly named before it fell under the curse, so it would have been named something light, not dark. Back to the google translate drawing board I went, this time putting in light-related words and phrases. I sifted through a whole list of their Norwegian counterparts, finally selecting "avgir lys", which is simply Norsk for, "emitting light". Again, I liked the sound of it, and it became the new title of the lake and thus the story. I have the story itself under the title of "The Curse of Lake Avgir Lys" presently, but I titled this blog post "The Curse of Avgir Lys", without the word lake, because I've been thinking about that becoming the title of my story. On the one hand, Lake Avgir Lys makes more sense because it's a lake, and Avgir Lys makes you think it might be a kingdom or something, which I've also toyed with the possibility that Avgir could refer to the land as a whole and not just the lake, but basically so far, the title including the word lake makes more logical sense and is more accurate. On the other hand, without the word lake, I think the title flows perhaps more smoothly, and maybe has a catchier sound, and it might not be so bad to leave it for the reader to wonder what Avgir is until they read the story. So, really, I'm not sure.
This is another good example of me. I sat out last night to briefly introduce my short story and then copy-paste an excerpt from it so I could get a post done right off, but then my "brief" introduction (you may have begun to realize that nothing is really brief with me) became a history of the name of my piece. I didn't even talk about the inspiration of it or the concept of it or why I'm working on it in Gat now (in hopes of getting it publishable and published before I graduate) or any of its other history. It's funny how that goes. But I do like this blog posts very much for allowing me to do that--to just go off on whatever tangent I feel like going on, and to explore it and write about it however I want to. But I'm still posting an excerpt of my story with this.
The bit of my story I'm going to post is the bit I wrote first. I think it and the second part both appeared in the CWC Anthology way back when, but for now I'm just going to post the first part. So, without further of my abundant ado, I present to you, my blog readership, the opening of my work in progress, The Curse of Lake Avgir Lys. Oh, and just FYI, this is all copywrighted to me, and it's my own, original writing, I am an author and I do intend to publish this at some point, and so by reading this you agree to not "reproduce in whole or in part" (as they say in those copywright notices) any of this without my express permission and proper citation. As stated in an earlier blog post, thieves shall be cast into the violet mist with no circles available. So, right, no stealing. No.
And now here is a snippet of my tale.
* * *
I stood on the weathered wood of the dock in utter blackness, save a few far-off lights from the village. The lake stretched ahead of me, vast and deep. Though the village, lit up and almost flickering, came to the far shores, no reflections danced on the still, near-invisible water.
I felt the cool, smooth stone in my fist. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, feeling the weight of the moment pressing on me, readying myself. I opened my eyes and pulled my hand back far behind my head and threw with all my strength. Hope rose in my chest as the beautiful light-pearl lifted into the solidly black air, cutting through it like a gleaming, noble blade. The moment it left my hand, the crisp white glow, like that of the moon, shone. As it flew away from me, out over the lake, it somehow illuminated the waters without a reflection, as though it were drifting over stiflingly thick black satin. The stone began to descend toward the enchanted waters, its potent healing power drawing swiftly nearer to the grievously ailing lake.
This was it. Surely the moonstone would work and the lake’s curse would be lifted, its splendid light returned.
But a split moment before the sheer white stone touched the dark surface, it stopped, hovering, motionless over the surface. The pure white faded as a flaming, vibrant orange crept into it, creeping up from the side towards the lake and crawling over its surface with tendrils like miniatures flames. The angry orange stone was flung upward, its powerful light repelled by the apparently more powerful dark. It swiftly sped, racing faster and faster toward the shore. Toward me.
I couldn’t react quickly enough, and the stone soon collided with my hand, burrowing into my palm, burning like a flame. I winced, momentarily powerless against the rebellious, darkened stone. But the stone’s glow shortly faded and its fire cooled. Soon, I was standing alone in the darkness with a colorless pebble clutched in my hand and hope sinking in my heart like soft grey ashes drifting to the ground beside a bonfire.
I groaned and sank to my knees. Another failed attempt at healing the lake. At healing the place I loved. At healing my home. I sat in the darkness and wept for another hope lost, in a place that had once been my sanctuary. A splinter from the dock dug into my palm.
Someday, I vowed, this place would be right again.
* * *
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