Back where the sea meets the ground

I spent most of my day baking honeycakes with my mother, but I also spent a portion of my day discussing fanfiction on the internet, and I am therefore delighted to report that my niece has reached the stage of investment in How to Train Your Dragon where she has declared that she and Hiccup have taken each other's last names. Her parents have gently put it to her that first grade may be a little early for marriage, but she is adamant. It is unclear as yet if she is also married to Astrid, but she has firm opinions about the kind of dragon she rides. I should start figuring out now what dragon-related thing I can give her for her birthday. She is not quite reading at a level where I could just deluge her with books, although I am told she enjoys having books read to her that she can't yet read herself. Recently she asked my mother if a children's fantasy was real and my mother answered that the people are a story, but the ways they feel are real. I like that wording very much. I remember few self-inserts from my own childhood, but I famously put myself into the Chronicles of Prydain as the daughter of Arawn and Achren, the princess of the underworld, fostered with the triple goddess in the Marshes of Morva. My self-esteem was a lot healthier then. That said, I had a day of not feeling terrible about the aesthetics of my physical embodiment, so spatch took a picture.