>>7066
>my first reaction is "maybe there were health considerations"

well, that´s quite an outlook that one would raise towards this episode. There isn´t any apparent sign which arises health matters. Although, one could establish a very grim theory with that statement...

The only way in which I can imply that there are health matters taken into account for such divorce would be because of Ocean Flow´s state. If you think about it deeply, we haven´t seen Terramar´s mother in her hippogriff, not even once (do we even have any vector of her as a hippogriff?). I could establish the theory that, despite being capable to stay in touch with the air, perhaps she is unable to return to her hippogriff form because she might have grown a reliance over the years confined in Seaquestria and she might be actually limited to stay as a seapony for the rest of her life.

That could actually explain why there is no remorse between the couple and they both agreed that they would do fine by staying separated in both places. Maybe, shortly after recovering Mt. Aris, they tried to pull off the transformation on her and probably concluded that it wasn´t a good idea to change her form at all.

Now, this headcanon is based on a very specific detail (and a very grim one if it turned out to be true) but given that the closest point where she stays on Earth has been on the beach (this happens in Uprooted as well, we don´t see her visiting Silverstream at the school of friendship, unlike Sky Beak).

One can perfectly assume that both parents have decided to run two different lifestyles but, are there more factors hidden beyond their own will? One can´t tell...because the episode doesn´t provide you much information about their backstory,except dropping certain subtleties.

>And the fact I have a file by that name on my work computer's desktop, I'm about three-quarters sure that was me.
would you have predicted what that bookmark has offered over the years?
One thing is for sure: you have surely proven to check it out but...wow, reading that reply in hindsight really makes one think about it. I left a post literally three days after yours and another one two months later for celebrating Christmas (without any expectations of getting any instant answer)