Ankyra Sound You can travel the world, but nothing comes close to the Golden Coast

Let me know if anything should be changed, I work all day tomorrow + the next day so I wanted to get this up tonight!

Her daughter was bouncing along at her side when Reverie first started to hear the sound of the waves, though she didn't know what it was. The air had long since changed, a new salty scent to it, but this was the first time Reverie really noticed how close they were. Her eyes went a little wide and she froze; Blossom didn't notice, bouncing and flouncing ahead obliviously. Reverie picked up the pace again in short order, but not without an excited glance at @Lestan. Her ears were pulled forward, her tail having taken up a stuttering stop-and-go of hesitant but joyful movement.
The ocean.
Reverie scooped Blossom up just as the water came into view, and went right to the edge of it all without missing a beat. She marveled at the feeling of the sand, the way it was so much coarser and somehow more pleasant than what she was used to. Sand, in her experience, was a fine dust that would scrape skin raw if left there too long. And on hot days, it burned. But the sand here was cool, clumped together near the water so that one could stand on it almost like normal ground.
And there was so much water. More water than she'd ever seen in her life, more than all the rains and all the lakes and rivers and ponds and puddles put together. She stared for a long time before she turned to Lestan, offering Blossom to him. Then she stepped into the water, and it was cold and alive and unlike anything she'd ever felt before.
Like coming home — and home was a vast emptiness without warmth or comfort, but a place of love nonetheless. Reverie imagined that if she could step into the ocean and lose herself, she would find a freedom like none other out there among the waves. Utterly alone in a new world entirely, not unlike how she had come to this land. She drifted out further, letting the waves strike at her limbs and then at her hips.
But she knew she couldn't leave Blossom — or Lestan, who she had come to understand had nothing in this world but their travel-weary family and the strange deer bone he kept tangled into the fur at his neck. That broke her heart in a way she could not begin to describe, to know that Swiftcurrent Creek was lost to him. So she turned back to her small family, back to Lestan, careful not to get him wet as she touched her nose to his cheek. There were no words for this moment, she felt.

The world had changed.

This was okay! Change happened so often in Blossom’s world, at the rate she was going she was sure it would change all over again.

It had gotten bigger. That was alright too! It meant more colors, sights and developments, a well travelled path to the adults became something new and exciting to Blossom! She didn’t fear change, because she had never learned the taste of fear. She didn’t know heartbreak, didn’t know how to be scared.

She tumbled along right beside her mother as the ground changed.

Ooooooooo! That was new too! The way it shifted beneath her feet, but she barely got any chances to make an acquaintance with the sand before her mother tugged her up and off over it. Blossom always marveled at that, how fast her mother seemed to travel where Blossom’s stubby little legs were still learning their own gears.

She looked out over the ocean, and her mouth fell open in a dramatic o. Her mother passed her off to her father, and she would plop down at his front feet the moment she was sat down, staring at the water. Formulating her thoughts, before she would raise her voice into a shriek.

WOOSH!

She yelled the sound over and over again, her tongue lisping over her newly formed teeth and throwing spit every which way. She messed up on the “sh”, occasionally turning it into a t sound, or a raspberry, but she was very enthusiastic!

there were no words.
at last, after days of travel, they had reached the sea. lestan had expected to feel — more as he stared out across the never-ending expanse. perhaps when they rested. perhaps when his feet did not hurt and his back did not ache and his neck was not so wretchedly —
but he stopped this inner monologue to watch reverie gently melt into the lapping waves as if she had been born to it. and he was struck again with that the sense of knowing. remembering.
when she turned back to him his heart raced; lestan smiled gently, waveringly, then looked down at blossom with a little laugh. "she likes it just as much as you, reverie."

Woosh!
Reverie could not help herself. She ducked down to kiss Blossom's forehead, echoing her softly: Woosh! And she took great joy in this, giggling a little when Blossom returned her woosh with more of a WOOSH!
Surely Lestan had already realized he would have his hands full with these two.
But then her attention fluttered back to him, as it always did and always would. This is where we belong, She returned his soft smile, a serene certainty to her voice that had been absent for some time. We should stop and rest for a little while. Maybe we can - take turns scouting around, see if we can find any packs nearby? But she looked to him for approval, for the final decision, as she often did of late.

"let's settle first," lestan said vaguely, turning here and there, seeking out a place with tired eyes. he was truly and magnificently pleased for reverie, happy to see her confident here, delighted to see blossom so quaintly taken with the seaside.
"i-i would like to scout for us, reverie." now that they were out of the creek, now that they had reached the ocean, she would be at peace, he hoped. their first sleep here would tell it, lestan knew. "i think it's best if you and blossom stay here, but i'll come back each day. hopefully we will find somewhere soon."

I spent 10 seconds trying to hunt down info on The Grotto and decided that was too long so FURIOUSLY HANDWAVES

She didn't like it, if she was honest; irrationally she felt certain Lestan would find something that called to him more than their little family, something that would draw him away forever. Another woman, perhaps! Her fear showed in her expression, but she nodded and tried to swallow it. You'll be careful? She asked, seeking reassurance now, but she tried to make light with her next words too, And you won't run off with some pretty beach girl?
Whatever he said, she committed herself next to helping him find somewhere to rest. She scanned the area all around them until her gaze caught on the mouth of a cave. Look! She breathed, ears pulling forward as she peered toward it. Maybe there...?

<3

"i'll start out early."
to reverie's ask he gave a small exhale. "why would i!" lestan exclaimed, nosing one side of her face and then the other before he glanced to the cave. "that might do, for now," the mayfair said gently, though he was stricken with thoughts of their lovely den and what it might have become.

Why would he?
Reverie could think of a thousand reasons, but foremost among them was herself. It seemed apparent that he still loved her, but she couldn't quite bring herself to believe it even in the face of undeniable evidence. How could he? She did not remember much of the time they'd spent with one another but she knew herself. It seemed inevitable that one day Lestan would tire of her.
But not today. She glanced to Blossom, who was still wooshing at the water. She wondered if her daughter would grow tired of her one day, too — or if she would grow to be so like Reverie that she would feel this same pain. Have I told you that she's named after my sister? Reverie wondered aloud, not intending to change the subject but wandering idly in her thoughts as she often did.

"i don't think so," lestan said quietly, taking a moment to look at blossom. she truly was perfect, though much more reverie than himself.
he did not mind this so much; it was best this way. "what would your sister have thought of all this, i wonder?" them, the creek, their flight, this daughter.

She hadn't expected the question, but didn't linger on it long. Rose? She would have been delighted, I think. It's strange, but - she loved everything. Everyone. And she always made the best of any situation. That was what I loved most about her, Reverie smiled, but it was an expression full of hurt and longing more than any true happiness. I was always so focused on - trying to help, I don't think I ever would have found time to be happy if not for her. She glanced to Blossom. Blossom reminds me of her, a little bit. But I want things to be different for Blossom. I want her to be happy because of her life, not in spite of it. Reverie didn't know if she could give her that kind of life, but she wanted to try. Her eyes lingered on her daughter, full of a love and devotion that was for now completely untainted by hurt or betrayal. It was Reverie's first and perhaps only time experiencing a love like that. She knew it wouldn't last.

they both looked at blossom then, gazing upon the girl as if she was both the source and the solution for so many things they had each suffered or lost.
lestan knew surely that reverie carried many things inside herself, that which he could never understand or ever know. 
he found himself now looking at reverie, at her lovely golden face and the strength she continued to exhibit during their choice of displacement and travel.
"we can give her a happy life."

For the first time in a long while, though Reverie lacked the memory to truly appreciate it, Lestan said exactly what she needed to hear — and nothing more. She looked to him and found him looking at her, and her heart skipped in spite of the grief and longing of the moment. Her cheeks warmed too, and she leaned in to kiss him a little shyly, as if they were brand new and it was only the second, perhaps third time.
For a moment it really felt that way.
But time had passed and things had changed; they had a daughter now, and the burden of finding a home and building a life, and new hurts between them which Reverie could not put to words or memory but felt, on occasion, cooling the air or turning touches hesitant or pushing their conversations into awkward stumbles. The butterflies faded from her all too soon. But the warm feeling lingered; Reverie wondered if that was what it was really like to be in love.