An afternoon out in the city was not an easy thing to wangle when it came to Matt's mother. Jessica was just a touch over-protective these days, and it took a lot of promises of good behavior from Fliss - as well as Liv promising to be the taxi service - to get permission for Matt to come out and play so far from Maple Grove. But with that permission, Fliss managed to get Matt to the Aquarium on a day when Lucas was working, happy to keep the other teen entertained in a way that might give him a few ideas about what he wanted to work toward.

Jessica Foster was just going to have to get used to it, if her sons were ever going to ever have any chance of having a normal life on Rhy'Din, and sooner was definitely better than later. After all, Lucas wasn't a prisoner at Maple Grove, so why should Matt be? To say he was excited to be going on his first real outing without his mother in tow was a bit of an understatement, and it didn't hurt that Fliss would be accompanying him. He knew she was his brother's girlfriend, and as such, was off-limits, but that didn't mean they couldn't be friends. Besides, he'd never had an older sister, and that was sort of what she'd become. Despite that, he couldn't help exclaiming, "Wow, you look awesome!" when she'd arrived at The Laurels to pick him up.

"Easy, tiger," was Fliss' laughing response to that. She'd only recently started to embrace the girly side of herself, and it had come with a healthy dose of personality with it. She liked the compliments, but Matt really shouldn't have been noticing. Mind you, by the time they got into the city, Liv had embarrassed them both so much with stories about Johnny, all thought of admiration was out of the window.

"Okay, okay ....goodbye, Mom," Fliss laughed as she got out of the car. "I'll call when we're done, okay?"

"All right, all right." Liv smiled at them both. "Have fun, guys."

"Thanks for the ride, Mrs. Storm!" Matt thanked her. He might be a goof most of the time, but his mother had at least raised him to be polite and respectful. But as soon as Liv had driven off, he ruined it by nudging Fliss and remarking, "Your mom is hot!"

"Ew, dude," Fliss laughed, rolling her eyes at him. "That's my mom. Fancy someone available and not old, would you?" Chuckling, she looped an arm about his neck to pull him along to the aquarium. "Gonna buy Lucas something plushie to make up for him missing the outing?"

Matt chuckled, wisely deciding he probably shouldn't refer to Liv's mom as a "MILF". He winced at the suggestion about plushies though. "Eww, no! You want to get him a plushie, you go right ahead. Brothers don't buy brothers stuffed animals!" he said, obviously finding that idea ridiculous. Maybe if he was five, but not at fifteen.

She laughed and let him go, digging into her pocket to pay for a couple of tickets into the attraction. "If we timed this right, there should be people diving in the Reef Tank," she told him as their entry was rung up. "One of the green turtles was rescued at the beginning of the year and had one of her flippers amputated, so people come by once a week to check on her."

"Rescued from what?" he asked curiously, as he waited for her to get tickets and followed her into the venue. It wasn't the first time he'd been to an aquarium, of course, but he'd never really had a personal tour of one before. "Do you think Professor Radcliffe will be here?" he asked further.

"You know, I don't actually know," Fliss admitted. "I guess she must have gotten snarled up in some fishing nets or something. There's all the info about it on the wall when we get there. This way, SuperMatt." She lead the way down the stairs and into the underground complex, suddenly surrounded by tanks that boasted an impressive array of marine life. "She might be. She's kind of linked to this place somehow, I know that. But she's not really all that predictable in when she's around."

"SuperMatt?" he echoed, chuckling. "More like AquaMatt!" he corrected with a grin as he followed her through the aquarium, impressed already with the array of marine life that surrounded them. "Are there any creatures here that are only native to Rhy'Din?"

"There's a few," Fliss nodded. "I mean, it's the sea, so there isn't that much that could evolve too differently from the fish on Earth. Like the reef fish - they're pretty similar, but there are some that only live on Rhy'Din. Or this. This, you have to see." Tugging his wrist, she pulled him over to a murky looking tank in which only a few nondescript fish were circling lethargically around what looked like an ancient stone statue.

Getting tugged along, he followed her to the murky-looking tank, leaning a little closer to get a better look as he peered inside, but so far, he didn't really see anything unusual. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

"The statue." Fliss pointed, and for a long moment, there was nothing to see. Then the apparently stone statue shifted, moving with terrifying fluidity, uncurling into a long serpent-like creature with vicious-looking fangs. It snapped its head toward the fish, capturing one as the others scattered, and resumed its former position, looking like nothing more than a lost piece of statuary at the bottom of the sea.

Matt gave a startled cry as he jumped away from the glass, eyes round as saucers. "What the hell!" He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it sure wasn't that. "What the hell is that?" he asked, obviously never having seen anything like it before.

Fliss grinned at Matt's reaction. "Everyone does that," she assured him with a chuckle. "It's a sea serpent," she went on. "There are loads of different kinds, but this one hangs around in old shipwrecks. No one really knows why it pretends to be a statue - I mean, it could pretend to be any old lump of rock - but it's an ambush predator. Cool, huh?"

"Cool," he replied, though he wasn't sure that was quite the right word for it. Scary, maybe, but definitely effective. "It doesn't, uh, prey on humans, does it?" he asked, wondering if he should rethink his plans for the future. Obviously, he needed to learn more about Rhy'Din before he plunged in literally headfirst.

"Uh ....I don't know, actually." Fliss leaned back, looking at the information board beside the tank, but before she could find out, another voice interjected itself.

"The petrie doesn't prey on anything bigger than its own mouth can swallow. They're really hard to find in the wild - they'd rather hide when people are around than hunt." A girl of around their age had overheard them, hands tucked in the back pockets of her shorts. Judging by the t-shirt, she worked here.

"The petrie?" Matt repeated. "Why's it called that?" he asked. It sounded like a strange name for what was essentially an predator who was able to camouflage itself in order to fool and catch its prey. They sure didn't have anything like that back home on Earth.

"Because of the way it looks," the girl told them with a half-shrug. "You know, because the process of turning into stone is called petrifying, so they called it the petrie. There are loads of them out there, but you kinda have to prod them to find out in the wild." She grinned. "Hi, I'm Cas. I work here."

"You ever talk to Luc about it?" she asked curiously. "Because it really messed him up, having to be perfect." She paused, wondering whether she should share this, but in the end, she figured Matt knew better than to go running to his brother and tell on her for sharing a private conversation. "Okay, you know what? I learned this in confidence, but I think you need to know it. Luc hates having to be perfect. But because he's spent so long living up to your dad's impossibly high standards, he doesn't know how to let go anymore. He doesn't recognize the difference between someone teasing him, and someone making fun of him maliciously. And he wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially you. He wants you to be your own person, and I bet your mom does, too."

Matt turned to her curiously at her revelation, obviously never having heard this before. "But he is perfect! At least, I think he is," he insisted, proving that he wasn't so much jealous of his brother as he was envious. They were two different things, after all, or so he thought. Then again, if he really thought about it, he had a lot going for himself, too. "I wish they hadn't sent him away," Matt said further, telling Fliss things he'd never told anyone before, not even his mother. "It was really hard after he left. Mom and Dad were always fighting, and ....I kinda felt like I lost my best friend."

"He's not perfect, Matt," Fliss told him gently. "No one's perfect. And you don't want him to be perfect, either." She sighed softly, squeezing his shoulders. "Look, you guys have had a really rough time the last couple of years, and the catalyst wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. It takes time to adjust to Rhy'Din, and how tolerant people are here. But you got your best friend back. Luc loves you, Matt; he missed you like crazy. And I know it's gotta be weird, having me around so much, but if you need me to back off so you can spend time with your brother, just tell me, okay' I'm not gonna be angry, and he won't, either."

"It just makes things a little harder now that he's not living with us anymore, but I understand why he wanted to move. It must have been hard coming here all alone and not knowing anyone. I'm glad he met you, Fliss. I like you, and I know he cares about you a lot," Matt said, the two of them reassuring each other. "I don't mind sharing, so long as you don't mind me hanging around sometimes. Just tell me if I'm hanging around too much, okay' I know you two want to be alone sometimes."

"Yeah, well, smooching does not come before family time," she informed him, wrapping her arm about his neck to draw him on once again. "Seriously, if you ever need to talk, I'm right here. If I can handle Alex and Mo sharing their weirdass dreams with me, I can handle a little Matt angst."

"I'll be okay!" he assured her with a smile as she drew him onward once again. "It's a little scary starting at a new school and everything, but I'll be okay. I already made one new friend today!" he reminded her with a grin, though he could hardly call Cas a friend, if he ever could.

"See, I told you you'd attract friends like flies to honey," she chuckled, releasing him before either of them could get uncomfortable with the closeness. "You just got graduated to honorary little brother status, make the most of it." Flashing him a grin, she turned toward the largest tank in the place - the Reef Tank, in which swam the best variety of fish, underwater eels and serpents, crabs, corals, sharks, and, of course, the turtles. And currently there were also two divers in there. "I should get a medal for my timing."

"Woohoo!" he exclaimed, fist pumping in triumph, a gleeful grin on his face at her declaration of his new status. He turned to check out the tank before them, eyes wandering over the creatures who called it home, before noticing the turtles and the divers. "Wow, they get right in there with the sharks?" he asked, wide-eyed.

"Yeah, I think it's got something to do with not stressing out the turtles. See the one with all the blonde hair" That's Professor Radcliffe." As Fliss pointed, the diver in question twisted out of the way of a black-tip shark, giving a second one a gentle push out of the way before returning her attention to the huge three-flippered green turtle sculling along beside her.

He couldn't see too much of the Professor but the blonde hair, but it wasn't her so much that drew his attention as it was the turtle. "That's awesome," he mused quietly to himself as he watched. He'd been considering some kind of career in marine science, but until that moment, he hadn't really thought too much more about it.

The other diver seemed more intent upon keeping the sharks from investigating the professor too closely, but Ashlyn Radcliffe was pretty intent on her own mission. They could even see her smiling around her ventilator as she ran her fingers over the scar where the turtle's flipper used to be. She wasn't unaware of the audience that had gathered to watch, either - as she let the turtle go, she drifted upright again, sharing a series of complex hand signals with her diving buddy. Then, purely for the entertainment of the group watching through the glass, they both performed a couple of somersaults before swimming up and out of sight.

Matt's gaze followed the divers, until they were out of sight, frowning a little to see them disappear. "I'd like to know more about what they do here," he said, more to himself than to his companion, but he was definitely showing an interest that wasn't just about having met a cute girl.

"We can probably arrange for you to meet the professor," Fliss told him. "Or we could work out a tour with your new friend and get her to introduce you to the professor." She smirked, nudging him gently. "There's a marine biology section at the museum, too; she works there as well. And, you know, she's a Granger. You're probably related to her."

"Related?" he said, brows arching upwards. It always surprised him when someone reminded him of that fact. He didn't really consider himself to be a Granger, though it was true some relative of his mother's was distantly related to the family patriarch, enough that they'd been welcomed as family. "She's not gonna know who I am."

"So' Half the Grangers don't know who the other half are," she pointed out. "It's a big family, dude. But you know how friendly Dom is" Ashlyn is his little sister, and she's kinda him in female form, except for the fact that she lurves the sea and all the little creatures that live in it. She's not gonna care how distantly related you are; she'll love being able to talk to you about something you're both interested in."

"Yeah, Dom is a little intimidating," Matt replied, revealing a little more of the insecurities he rarely let show. "Lurves?" he repeated with an amused chuckle followed by a sigh. "I suppose I'm gonna have to meet her sometime." Especially if he wanted to study with her.

"It's just because he's big and confident," she assured him. "Total teddybear, I promise you." His sigh made her laugh. "Oh, don't sound like you don't want to," she chuckled. "If we hang around here long enough, we could catch her on her way out today."

"I don't wanna bother her," he said, both excited and just a little bit shy. Meeting a girl his age was a lot different and a lot more intimidating than meeting a full-grown woman who was a professor, even if she was somehow related.

Fliss tilted her head, a little bemused as she looked at him. "Are we talking about the same person here?" she asked with a faint grin. "Adult professor, or teenaged tour guide?"

"Adult professor, smartass," he confirmed with a smirk. He had no problem bothering a cute teenage girl he was hoping to run into again.

"Hey, you're not supposed to notice my ass, dude," she teased him laughingly. "Your call. Hang around to catch the prof, or get Dom to get her onto the Grove sometime soon so you can meet her. Choose, or I'm going to find that little cutie and ask her out for you."

"Um ..." Matt stammered again, glancing momentarily at the pirate and his brother's girlfriend before turning back, figuring Fliss would be safe enough for the moment. "I'm sorry to bother you, but Fliss thought you might be able to help me. I'm Matt Foster, Lucas' brother. I guess you've heard of me."

"Yeah, I've heard of you," Ash conceded. "I get a little obsessed with new people who might share my love of the sea. I heard a rumor that you might have gills, so I made a point of remembering your name. Be glad you haven't met me drunk at a party - I forced my cousin's mermaid wife to demonstrate her tail under threat of being painted with white chocolate when I was under the influence." She grinned, nodding sagely. "There's a reason my family don't let me get drunk very often."

"White chocolate?" Matt echoed, surprised at first before he smiled in amusement, deciding he liked her already, though he wasn't too sure about the pirate. "You can paint me in white chocolate anytime you want," he said, blushing a little as he realized what he'd just implied. "I didn't mean it that way!"

She snorted with laughter. "Easy, kiddo, Captain Hook doesn't share," she warned him cheerfully. "Did I get really lucky with the rumor being true and you also being interested in the sea" Because if I did, you made my day."

"Captain ....Hook?" Matt echoed, looking over at the pirate again. He didn't see any hook. He had to have heard her wrong. Wasn't his last name Radcliffe" "Uh ..." The pirate met his gaze, shooing his attention back to Ashlyn with the wave of a hand. "Yeah, I'm interested. Very interested. I'm thinking about majoring in marine science," he told her, though he made no further mention of gills just yet.

"Long story, not mine to tell," she chuckled, hitching her bag more comfortably onto her shoulder as Matt went on. "Marine science encompasses a huge area; you're going to need to find a focus or you're going to be completely overwhelmed. My specialism is marine biology, with a focus on reef habitats; there are others who study the ocean itself, the water and the natural terra-forming that makes up the seabed; other people study the impact of growing population and pollution on the oceans. There are a whole range of areas within marine science. You're spoiled for choice."

He still had questions about the pirate, but that wasn't what he was here for. "But the oceans aren't polluted on Rhy'Din, are they?" he asked uncertainly. He knew it was a problem back home on Earth, but he didn't think it was a problem here. He knew marine science was a broad science, and he'd have to narrow it down eventually, but at least this was a start.

"No, not yet," she promised him. "We're learning from the mistakes made on Earth, and trying to find solutions before the problems make themselves known. It's a really well-funded area of study."

"But I don't have to decide now, right?" he asked further, not really knowing what area of expertise he'd like to focus on just yet.

"No, you don't have to decide straight away," Ash assured him with a smile. "I specialized when I was your age, that's how I made it to professor by twenty-four. But just because I did it this way, it doesn't mean you have to. Find your niche, and work at your own pace, and if I can help at all, I will."

"By my age?" Matt echoed, clearly surprised by that. And then she was offering to help, if she could, and he wondered if it would be too bold of him to ask her about interning. "Well, I was thinking maybe, if it's okay, I could volunteer here sometime."

"You don't have to volunteer," she encouraged him. "They have job openings all the time. There are always places to fill, and hours to suit. And you can put me down as your reference, too." She winked at him. "Let a little of my academic mojo get you a weekend job you might actually enjoy."

"Really?" he asked, his expression brightening. "That would be cool!" He just hoped he'd have enough time to juggle it all.

Ash chuckled, patting his shoulder. "Pick up an application on your way out, and I'll put in my two cents for you," she told him, glancing to where Fliss and James were attempting to converse. No easy feat when one half of the conversation is a modern teenager and the other is still a man stuck in the 18th century. "Okay, I should take my hangry pirate for lunch. Enjoy your day, okay' And here ..." She passed him her business card, slightly damp but still legible. "Anytime you wanna swing by the museum and take a looksee, let me know."

"Cool! Thanks, Professor!" he exclaimed, taking the card from her with a grateful smile, obviously excited about his new prospects, as well as relieved she was so warm and welcoming. "I'm starting school in a few weeks, but maybe I can come by sometime before that."

"Anytime during working hours, give me a call, and we'll arrange something," she promised him with a grin, as eager to encourage his interest as he was to explore it. "C'mon, I'll swap you your brother's girlfriend for my husband."

"Is he really a pirate?" he asked, glancing over at the tall, dark man with the beard and the earring. He wasn't afraid of him so much as he was intrigued. The man didn't really look like the way he'd imagined a pirate should look. As far as he could tell, he wasn't even wearing a sword.

"Used to be." Ash smiled, and her smile was deeply fond as she looked over at her husband. "Give it another couple of weeks, and he'll be the captain of a research vessel attached to Rhy'Din Museum. And in charge of me on my research trips."

"I bet he's got a few stories to tell," Matt said, though he didn't want to push his luck, especially with a grumpy pirate who was purported to be Captain Hook. It was the professor and her stories that really interested him.

"A few, but only to bed buddies," she told him, her smile turning to a truly wicked grin as she glanced at Matt. One arm looped its way through James' as she leaned into him. "All right, love, ready to go?"

"Aye," James replied as Ashlyn rejoined him. "The lass was just telling me her life story," he told her, with just the hint of a smirk on his face. "She has a brother and two sisters, a dog, cat, and dragon, and lives next door to her boyfriend's family, but her boyfriend just moved out. She is hoping to become a firefighter, just like her father, though her mother would prefer that she waits until she's a bit older," James said, practically all in one breath, just like Fliss.

"Wow, that's ....that's a lot to learn in one short conversation," Ash laughed.

To her credit, Fliss didn't even look mildly embarrassed, just offering up a shrug and a smile. "You wanted privacy and I don't know when to stop talking," she grinned. "He did offer to stick a cork in my teeth when I started talking about my boobs, though."

James winced. He had nothing against boobs personally. In fact, he was rather fond of them, but he didn't really want to think about boobs on a girl who was still young enough to be living with her parents. "Some things do not make for polite conversation," James said, in defense of himself.

Matt laughed. "You never talk to me about your boobs," he teased.

"That's because you're fixated on them, and it's not healthy for you," Fliss countered Matt's tease with easy confidence.

Ash snorted with laughter, giving James a gentle tug. "Okay, we'll let you two wrangle that one out," she chuckled. "C'mon, captain, I promised you lunch."