Jack of Harts

Iona was what one might consider an after thought. She was not the first faery companion I created to accompany William Carter’s stories. She wasn’t even the first redhead.

But I always planned her to have something to do with the navy. I’m a fan of a certain anime about warships with avatars where an AI named Iona commanded a boat created in emulation of the Imperial Japanese Navy I-401. I was looking for a good Scottish name for a faery I intended to introduce for a previous story about the Battle of New Orleans, and I found that Iona was a Scottish name. I was looking for a faery to march with a Scottish regiment that fought in that battle. And I just smiled and ran with it, because… who am I to interrupt serendipity when it rears its head at me.

So in this story, Hooves on the Water, that takes place a century later in William Carter’s story, I had a ship and I needed a commander, and Iona smiled in my mind and said “me!”

And that is how Iona joined the second story I have written with her in it, and the first that will be published. And of course, she had to live up to her name. Have no fear, she is a fun one.

Source image created using Forge and Juggernaut Ragnorak. Storm effects added by Grok Imagine.