For the fishermen of the Ionian island of Kephalonia, off the west cost of Greece, no time of year held quite as much dread as the two-month period between mid-February and mid-April. Sure, the autumn storms were bad, and the Mediterranean pirates were a handful, definitely, and the occasional invasions by Persian fleets were, without doubt, a serious complication, but none of that came anywhere close to the devastations caused by a particularly destructive mermaid known as Capri, the Brave…
Jones had no idea how long he’d been floating aimlessly on the high seas. Two days, maybe three. His last clear memory was of his pirate schooner—the Shark’s Shenanigans—, wrapped in the tentacles of the terrible Kraken, disappearing beneath the raging waves. And now he was alone, bobbing along on an empty barrel and almost dying of thirst. What a cruel twist of fate that the infamous pirate Davy Jones IV should end his days as mere flotsam, the captain of a rotting casket of rum!
Yukio was a real trickster. Barely a day went by without him getting up to something. He wasn’t a bad kid as such, he just couldn’t resist a bit of mischief. He was such a clever, quick-tongued fellow that not even the wisest sage could handle him. When Yukio was 13 years old, Tokyo was not the enormous city it is today, but a modest fishing village called Edo. One afternoon, Yukio got himself into a right mess. He’d cheated one of the Palace guards at a game of Go, and the soldier was not happy. Knowing he was in for a clip round the ear from his father, the Imperial advisor, Yukio decided to make himself scarce.
Anthony Doyle 