Author's notes for Elpis of Akrotiri:
This story is very loosely based around Plato's tale of Atlantis, which is from his dialogues Timaeus and Critias. There has been speculation that the very real, very large eruption at Santorini may have been an inspiration as he wrote about the war between Athens and Atlantis. While the historical eruption that took place on Santorini does not match up exactly with Plato's Atlantis, the shape of the story is there.
For my story, I decided to use that same real eruption and create a character, Elpis. My character is living on the island of Thira (Santorini) shortly before the eruption. As the eruption gets closer and the volcano is giving off all the same warning signs volcanoes give, my character Elpis is trying to decide when, or if she should leave.
Sailing speeds were my best guesses, using information from these webpages: one and two. Lygos is one of the many former names of Istanbul.
Elpis is a word meaning hope - hope that the story lives on, hope that something of the life before remains.
Akrotiri is also real, the excavation can be seen on the island of Santorini, also called Thera or Thira.
Author's Notes for Sylbaris of Saint Pierre
This story is based on the fantastical tales of Ludger Sylbaris, who survived the eruption of Mount Pelée on May 8, 1902. Ludger was in a jail cell in Saint Pierre the night before the eruption. The placement of his jail cell and the direction the window in the cell faced are all believed to have contributed to his survival. Reports about why Ludger was in jail vary, so I made up my own tale. The very real facts about this eruption are that an estimated 28,000 people were killed and the town of Saint Pierre was destroyed. Ludger did spend about 4 days trapped in his cell before rescue crews got him out of the rubble.
Saint Pierre is on the island of Martinique, which is located in the Caribbean and is a part of France. Columbus briefly touched down there in 1502 but the colonization history of Martinique really began with the French in 1635. The official language in Martinique is French and many people also speak Martinican Creole. I used my barely remembered high school french as well as language dictionaries to insert the small amount of French in this story.
*French translations*
brûle en l'enfer - burn in hell
mère de Dieu - mother of God
For the curious there are some myths out there from Carib and Arawak tribes who first lived in Martinique! I did not use any of these for my story, other than for research purposes, due to not being able to narrow down anything to a specific island.
Myths & Legends of the Carib People