It had been no surprise to anyone when the newly-wedded Radcliffes were nowhere to be found two days after their wedding. The Charlotte had slipped her moorings, and the builders working on their house to the north had been given instructions. Ash's superiors at the university and museum were the only ones who knew exactly how long she planned to be away, and they were keeping that information close to their chests.

And where were the newly-wedded Captain and Mrs. Radcliffe" Sailing a coral studded strait of crystal clear waters, beneath warm sun, both of them indulging their shared delights with one another for the first time since they had met.

For the first time ever, Captain James Radcliffe, formerly known as Captain Hook - one of the most infamous pirates in all history - had traded his signature leathers for a pair of blue jeans and a white t-shirt. He'd offered no indication whether this was going to be an ongoing trend, as he was a man of his time; but here on their ship, away from the mainland and the prying eyes of people, both familiar and otherwise, there were no pretenses and no need to keep up appearances. Here, on his honeymoon with the woman he loved, he was no pirate. He was only a man, nothing more. He was just James.

And just James had his hands full with his wife. Ashlyn was currently hanging off the side of the Charlotte, one hand gripping the railing firmly, as she examined the reef below them through the clear water. "I still think you should let me get into my suit so I can plant the anchor," she was saying, a little too protective of the natural environment on the whole.

"Then get in your bloody suit and stop hanging off the side of the ship like a bloody figurehead!" he snapped, not really angry at her, but worried she was going to hurt herself somehow. There were reasons pirates didn't like taking women on board their ships - except for those who were pirates themselves - and this was one of them. If this was where she wanted to weigh anchor, he'd sooner just do it and be done with it, though he understood her desire to protect the reef from damage. He looked around, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun. "Why don't we weigh anchor a little further out and take the dingy in close?"

Climbing back up and over the railing, Ash tossed her hair back out of her face, taking his snapping with a pinch of salt. "We can't go too much further out, the shelf drops away dramatically about twenty feet that way," she told him, pointing. "I thought we were taking the dingy in, anyway?" As she spoke, she was busily undoing her shirt and shorts, preparing to dive over the side and scare the crap out of him with a demonstration of how well she could hold her breath.

"As you wish, then," he told her, with a wave of his hand. If she was that determined to dive here, there was nothing he could say or do to stop her, after all. He might be have been a pirate and a master sailor, but he knew very little about diving in coral reefs. Reefs were something wise sailors tended to avoid, as they were notoriously dangerous.

"All right. Wind the anchor out once I'm in," she told him, setting her clothing to one side, clad only in a bright bikini. Perhaps it was a little odd that she should want to plant the anchor herself, but she'd seen too much incidental damage done to precious habitats through inconsiderate mooring. Climbing over the rail, she blew James a kiss and dove off the side, entering the water with hardly a splash to linger below the surface and wait for the anchor to lower for her.

He opened his mouth to protest or at the very least to tell her to be careful, but before he had a chance to say a word, she was already diving off the side and disappearing beneath the water. "Blasted bloody stubborn woman," he muttered under his breath while he did the hard work on board the ship of rolling out the anchor. He wasn't a rookie when it came to casting anchor, but there was a lot more involved than just tossing a heavy weight overboard to keep the ship in place.

She was, of course, no more stubborn than he was, but she was a little more fearless when it came to putting herself underwater. Even without goggles, she could see perfectly well, and she'd taken a deep enough breath before diving to be able to linger beneath the little ship. That was where she had ended up, a lone figure in a cloud of blonde hair, waiting patiently to guide the anchor down to a point where it wouldn't snag on anything too irreplaceable.

It wasn't the easiest task to toss the anchor overboard and unwind the cable that held connected it to the ship. He was more accustomed to giving orders to get things done than actually doing them himself, but with only the two of them on board, it was up to them to do the work, as well as enjoy the ride.

At least Ashlyn was a fast learner; enough that she was trusted with rigging and steering by this point, as well as the heavier work when they were at anchor. Of course, she didn't have the faintest idea what he was doing up there, far more concerned with guiding the heavy anchor down through the crystal clear water to a safe spot. She didn't mean to disturb the shoal of brightly colored fish, but they swept out of the way nonetheless, painting the sea in a flashing shout of yellows and reds that erupted from beneath the Charlotte cheerfully as the anchor found a home amid the sand and stone and coral.

By the time he had the anchor unwound and over the side of the ship, the muscles in his arms and back were protesting in pain, but he wasn't afraid of a little hard work and had suffered through far more backbreaking work to earn a living when he'd first arrived in Rhy'Din. What concerned him at present was the fact that his wife had dove beneath the water some minutes ago and had yet to resurface. What the bloody hell is she doing down there" he wondered as he peered over the side of the boat, unable to see much but a riot of color bursting forth from somewhere beneath the surface. "Bloody hell," he muttered to himself, yanking the t-shirt over his head and taking a deep breath before diving into the water himself to search for her.

And where was Ash' Still close to the grasses that peppered the sand, some fifteen feet below the surface, grinning as she rubbed the belly of a zebra shark that had come to investigate her. The creature was swimming on its back, tail twitching happily as her fingers played over its belly.

Thankfully, he was a good swimmer. That could not be said for all the sailors in the King's Navy or all pirates either. Worried as he was for her safety, where did he find her but playing with some strange spotted fish he thought might prefer taking a bite out of them both to having its belly rubbed. Finding his way to her, he tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to the surface as if to tell her to follow him. He was far more comfortable on the deck of a ship than beneath the sea.

Turning her head toward James, Ash's grin deepened, but she nodded agreeably, pointing her thumb to the surface to show him that she understood. With a last rub of the shark's belly, she pushed off from the sand, aiming herself for the surface, oblivious to the fact that her new friend was following her.

Unfortunately, she didn't get a chance to see the look of alarm on James' face when that big fish decided to follow her. He, too, followed her to the surface, giving the fish a wide berth, his heart pounding in his chest as he broke the surface and gasped for breath.

By contrast, when Ash broke the surface, she gasped just once, smoothing her hair back from her face as she grinned over at her husband. "You okay there, baby?" she asked, startled when the little shark rubbed against her side. "Oh! Hello, you!"

"Okay"! Am I okay?" he sputtered, looking very not okay. In fact, he was looking more than a little anxious about the entire adventure. Here was a man who had willingly fought a band of pirates without blinking an eye, but was terrified of what lurked beneath the ocean. "No, I am not okay ..." he stammered, pointing a shaky finger at the creature who was bumping against her side. "And you keep that-that thing away from me."

Rubbing the little shark's back, Ash refused to indulge her husband's minor sense of panic. "He'll go back down to the bottom in a minute," she told James. "He's a juvenile zebra shark. Look at this mouth - worst he could possibly do is bite off a finger, and he won't do that unless we poke at him. They're not aggressive sharks, James. Treat them with respect, and they'll do the same for you."

He hugged the towel tighter around his shoulders, cold drips of water from his hair sliding down his back as he settled himself on the bed, waiting and wondering in the dark just what she was up to. It wasn't until a soft light filled the cabin that he realized what had been hidden beneath the carpet. His mouth slowly opened as he peered at the view, safely from the other side of the barrier. "What ....How?" he asked, leaning over to rap his knuckles against the floor, curious as to what material allowed such a wonder.

"It's reinforced perspex and glass, sealed with a steel frame and spelled to give it extra strength," she told him, stretching out onto her front to look down at the underwater scenery beneath them. "The whole hull is like this - I checked. You can peel back the carpet in the other cabins, too, but I figure a lot of people would be uncomfortable with it all the time. It's completely safe."

He wasn't sure exactly what she was telling him - it all sounded like another language to him. He understood what glass was, of course, but this was created using some sort of engineering that was unfamiliar to him. "You didn't think I would be uncomfortable with it?" he asked, curiously as he peered into the wonder of the sea that surrounded them. Looking at it from behind glass was a much different thing than swimming within it.

She smiled at him, the softer light filtered through the water and glass gentling her pretty features. "No, I didn't," she said thoughtfully. "Was I wrong" Because you don't seem uncomfortable." Beneath them, the shoal of fish she had disturbed earlier had returned, spiraling over the sand from one jut of the reef to the next.

"No, you weren't wrong," he assured her, as he leaned over to touch his fingers to the glass again. "May I?" he said, as if asking permission to touch it. Had he known such a view was hiding beneath the carpet, he might have inspected it days ago.

"Sure," she encouraged him softly, wriggling to the end of the bed to pull the carpet back a little more. They could, in theory, remove the entire carpet from the cabin and have a completely transparent floor all the time, but she didn't think she'd be too comfortable with a view of the bottom of Rhy'Din harbor, for example. Keeping the carpet was the plan, anyway. "It's not gonna break just because the carpet's gone."

But he wasn't just asking for permission to touch the glass so much as to get a closer look, mirroring her posture by spreading himself out on the bed beside her to watch the goings on in the sea beneath them. "What sort of fish are those?" he asked, curiously of the brightly-colored school of fish that kept swimming past.

"Those look like Rhy'Dinian wrasse to me," she told him. "There are variants of wrasse on Earth - the Rhy'Din version is a lot like the Fijian version from Earth. They like sandy bottomed places so they can hide in it if there's a predator around, and they eat things like shrimp and tubeworms." She grinned, reaching down to point at a small many-limbed creature crawling along the bottom below the shoal. "That's a blue-ringed octopus," she told him. "They don't grow much bigger than that, but they're venomous. They won't kill you, but if they get a poke in with the beak in the middle of all those legs, you'll be pretty ill for a while."

"I thought you said it was safe," he reminded her with a worried frown. The fish didn't look too terribly dangerous, but the octopus was another matter. He'd heard stories of giant octopi, bigger than a ship, wrapping their long tentacles around a ship and dragging it down into the depths. They were nothing but the stuff of myth and legend, of course, but here on Rhy'Din, anything was possible.

"Yes, it's safe," she promised him. "An octopus that size isn't going to be able to grab onto you and hold you down on the bottom of the ocean. Neither is it going to attack you unless you do something to deserve it. Believe it or not, pretty much everything down there is more afraid of you than you are of it."

His knee-jerk reaction was to deny he was afraid of the creatures that lived in the sea, but she had witnessed his reaction to the zebra shark, so there wasn't much point in lying about his fears. "It's quite lovely, isn't it?" he said in obvious wonder, despite his fears.

She sighed happily, touching her head to his shoulder as they watched the underwater ballet that was just another day in the life of a reef. "It really is," she agreed softly. "And you're not the only one who is a little wary of what you don't know. It took years before I learned to dive. I did most of my learning out of books and at the aquarium because I was so sure something would bite me, or poison me, or eat me. Fear of the unknown is healthy, James, and in your time, you haven't grown up with fish tanks on land you could visit, or experts who would answer questions. For you, the sea is still a dangerous mystery, and there's nothing wrong with respecting that."

"There are stories of sea monsters and other such things. I always thought they were nonsense, but ..." He paused a moment in thoughtful contemplation. "There are things in Rhy'Din I cannot explain, just as there were in Neverland," he told her. "I was not so afraid before. I was fearless as a lad, but I've seen things ..." He trailed off again, reluctant to speak of such things. "The goddess ....She told me I would meet someone who would help me understand, who would teach me."

Rolling onto her side to face him, Ash considered her husband thoughtfully as he spoke, choosing to focus on what she could explain for him. "From everything I've learned, sea monsters like the Kraken and whales the size of islands and sea serpents ....they're exaggerations of real creatures that have been witnessed," she told him gently. "There are giant squid, and there are species of whale that are enormous. But they live deep in the deepest seas, and very rarely come to the surface. They're more likely to fight each other than to attack a ship, and even then, it's a last resort. But their bodies wash up sometimes, and that's how people see them and start the rumors that grow with each telling. The stories are more human error than actual fact."

"On Earth, perhaps," he agreed, turning his head to regard his wife. "But here ..." He shrugged, knowing anything was possible on Rhy'Din. He knew she would never knowingly put either of them in danger, but there was a certain sense of the unknown and unknowable that scared him a little. "You have lived here all your life," he added. "But I have not. I can only trust your judgment and hope that you are right," he said, turning back to admire the view once again. "You said something about rock pooling. What is that"

Glad he was at least trying to put his faith in her knowledge and skill, despite the wealth of life experience telling him not to, Ash dropped onto her stomach beside him once more. "Oh, you know when the tide goes out, it leaves pools in the rocks that line the shore?" she told him in answer to his question. "Exploring those is called rock pooling. I think the biggest thing I ever found in a rock pool was a crab about the size of my hand." She chuckled at the memory. "It's mostly shellfish, like limpets and mussels, and there are the sea urchins. You can collect them to take a closer look before you put them back. Usually get a few hours to explore before the tide comes back in."

"And that is the first step?" he asked curiously, turning his head to regard her again. He thought that would be easy enough for him to handle, perhaps even too easy. "What is the next step?" he asked further, wondering if he dared skip step one.

"Well, I guess the next step from that would be wading a little in the tideline when its high," she considered, rubbing a hand through her damp hair. "A lot of bottom dwellers come up the sand with the tide, so you'd be introducing yourself to things like rays, and maybe the occasional zebra shark. The worst they'd do is nibble your feet, and even then, you can wear sneakers until you're comfortable in bare feet. I already checked - there are no stone fish around here, thank god."

"Rays ..." he echoed. "Like the one at the museum." He'd already seen one of those up close and personal at the museum where she worked, among a few other sea creatures, but not in their natural habitat. The zebra shark was what she had been swimming with a bit earlier and had assured him were harmless. "And after that?" he asked further.

"Bad boy?" he echoed further, trying hard to hide a smirk. "I stopped being a boy a long time ago, lass. Need I prove my manhood?" he teased, shifting his body so that he was leaning over her as she turned onto her back. The fact that he was no longer a boy was very apparent, and he didn't think he really needed to remind her of it. "I can assure you there is nothing romantic about being a pirate."

"Oh, you know what I mean," she laughed, poking at him affectionately. "Prove away, though, I'm always open for business where you're concerned." She winked up at him, drawing her fingertips gently along his cheek. "I know the real thing isn't romantic, but the fantasy is pretty damn sexy."

"But I am ..." He furrowed his brows, looking confused once again. "I am no fictional character in a book, Ashlyn. No fantasy. I am as real as you are. I can no more change what I am than a tiger can change its stripes. I am flattered you find me attractive, but I can assure you, I dress only for practical purposes. Nothing more."

She smiled gently. "Remind me to watch Captain Blood with you sometime," she told him. "It might make things a bit easier to understand. I know about the reality. But I also know the fictional side, and even though it isn't real, it's still kinda sexy. And I feel safe to indulge in the fantasy with you - I know you won't hurt me, but you can give me a thrill no one else can."

"Captain Blood. I've never heard of him," James remarked, though he hadn't really been a pirate very long - at least, not on the high seas. Most of his pirating had been done during his time spent in Neverland. "I am only too happy to indulge in any fantasy you wish, love, but I can assure you there is nothing sexy about being a pirate. You should have met Smee," he added with a grin. "My first mate. Missing teeth, tangled hair, lice ..." He chuckled. "No, there is nothing sexy about being a pirate."

"Ewww ..." Laughing once again, Ashlyn rolled her eyes. "Seriously. You, me, Captain Blood." She rose up onto an elbow nudging his nose with hers. "He's based on a real guy, too. Some fella on Earth who turned pirate, and ended up the governor of some place in the West Indies, I think. Hero and happy ending, the works. Just like you."

"I am no hero, love," James pointed out. "And I prefer not to share," he added with a smirk as he dipped his head to nibble at her neck. Apparently, his appetite for her had not yet waned. He made no remark regarding the happy ending, as she was proof of such already.

She snickered, squirming as he nibbled at her skin. "Oh no, you don't," she told him cheerfully, making a spirited attempt to wriggle away. "Mrs. Radcliffe needs to eat, or she's not gonna be able to keep you occupied until the moon's high tonight."

He clucked his tongue at her as she wriggled away. "And here I thought you liked adventure. Shall I brandish a sword for you next time?" he teased. There was a bawdy joke in there somewhere, but he'd let her fill in the blanks on her own.

"Hey, if it makes lunch, brandish away," she shot back, slithering onto her feet and reaching for a shirt. They weren't going anywhere, and she doubted there'd be anymore swimming today, so a shirt and panties was perfectly acceptable for now. "Race you to the galley?" she suggested. "Because if I get there first, you know it'll be inedible."

"Race away," he said, waving her off as he rolled to his feet. It was no secret that they both preferred her cooking, so there wasn't much in beating her to it. Besides, he had to find a decent pair of comfortable pants to lounge in on board ship that weren't made of denim or leather.

She laughed, hopping into a pair of panties on her way across the cabin. Beneath her feet, another shoal of brightly colored fish spiraled about, seeming to follow her as she reached the cabin door. "No lounging," she told her husband fondly, wiggling a finger at him. "Or I'll eat it all myself, and you'll just have to perform on an empty stomach."

"I was willing to perform on an empty stomach five bloody minutes ago!" he pointed out, grumbling a little as he rummaged for his nightclothes. Modern clothing was still something of a mystery to him, though in most cases, he found them far more comfortable than what he was accustomed to wearing.

"Hey, if you don't stop pouting, I won't get the chocolate paint out," she threatened laughingly, slipping out of the cabin. "C'mon, Captain Sexy, come and distract me over food. You know you want to!"

"Good lord," he muttered, rolling his eyes as he tugged a pair of cotton breeches on over his hips, followed by a plain white t-shirt - comfortable, modern, and modest. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and turning this way and that, leaning in to take a closer look at his eyes, sans kohl. He wasn't sure what she saw in him, but he wasn't going to argue.

Well, she'd married him, hadn't she? And he knew that love didn't focus on his looks alone. It might have seemed fast to others, but compared with other Granger pairings, they'd taken their time, getting to know one another through at least one stressful experience along the way. And here they were - Captain and Mrs. Radcliffe. They might still be learning about each other, but nothing was going to shake the bond they had formed together. Not even sexy pirates and harmless sharks.