[montsnmags]

This story starts once upon a time. Actually, some of the events happen more often, but some, like the bit with the pony, only happened this once because he got used to it after the first time, and actually kind of disillusioned with the whole predictability of the thing. That's why I always say "You can't please every pony, especially those snooty mountain bastards". Ironically, one of the events in it does happen all the time, which is kind of the point, but, hey, who doesn't like a story that starts, “Once upon a time...”? Only dog-haters and people who like those chips made out of reconstituted potato, that's who. And so...

Once upon a time (not really once, except for some parts), at just before 5am, in a shy, cool, little corrie beneath Craig Cerrig Gleisiad that didn't get the attention of some of the bigger Brecon Beacon numbers just because an official from the local office of the Countryside Council once lost a son to its more vicious meterological elements which was the kid's own fault really because it was a bad winter and he didn't tell anyone where he was going but what are you going to do against the man who holds the purse-strings of publicity, and anyway it's all probably for the best when you consider the corrie's little idiosyncrasy which is what we're about to hear about, because...

Once upon a time (not really once - see above), at just before 5am, in a shy, cool little corrie beneath Craig Cerrig Gleisiad, a pony (wild Welsh Mountain variety, obviously) could be heard, if there was anything to hear it (Hush now), stamping his front-left hoof against the steel-hard moraine-stones and shaking his head and mane in a manner that suggested impending violence at the intruder (Hush, people! He doesn't know we're here, but if he does I wouldn't put it past the narky bastard to track us down). The place at which he stared, tucked into the lower slopes beneath the crags, was - in a manner that would be perfectly naturally if only the laws of nature we're used to were entirely different and perhaps had a bit more of the colour zorange about them - kind of turning inside out. This, I think you'll agree, could likely be quite disconcerting, and probably moreso when you're only up there to eat some of it. Stamp! Stamp! (that's the pony). At 5am precisely, which occurred just as a third stamp was on its way to exclamation, there was a mild sizzling noise that ascended into a pitchy squeal, and then the air completed its self-evisceration with a grim "glrrrOPP!" and, before the pony could add another punctuation mark (hoof still raised, now thinking "Bloody hell! What's that?!), there appeared, stamping its own mark, a tiny village. Well, when I say "village", it was more of a collection of stone buildings that looked like it was aspiring for village status if someone could just rustle up a town clock and maybe more than one intersection. Regardless, at 5am, in a shy, cool little corrie beneath Craig Cerrig Gleisiad, there appeared the village of (as indicated by the ice-worn sign, with faded, cracked lettering struggling to name and populate it)...

"Farking".

The black to the west gained the barest dark blue hint of the impending quantacular display of atoms being torn apart a mere 146 million or so kilometres away. Windows in some of the buildings became outlined with the glow from bedside lamps (one presumes) being switched on. The roaring silence of the corrie - uneasy of anything more than gravity settling the occasional rock into a more comfortable position for a few more decades - was wisped away with the melodic, mono-sussuration of clock-radios being alarmed by the testicular tones of "Never gonna give you up...".

Farking awoke. The pony ("Oh, right, is that all?") went back to eating the landscape, now no longer so Farking surprised.

...