Foreword

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Ok, so I feel a little bit guilty about the misleading nature of that title. I didn't choose it, ~~someone~~ somepony else did (Rarity). She said that it gave the journal a better "flare for the dramatic". I don't know how accurate that is, but I'll roll with it.

To explain what I mean, I need to clarify that the title is only two-thirds correct.

Let's get one thing clear right now: this will not be a very easy-to-understand story. This is me just rambling, not me writing down my memoirs. Although, my... friends (can I even still call them my friends?) have helped me a great deal to make this thing a little clearer for you, and I guess it can be a story if you squint hard enough.

Hello Mr. Mountain!

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The wind whipped about me as I fell, my eyes drawn upwards towards the sky as I watched the familiar sight of the dimensional gate closing behind me, the whirling vortex of space and time slowly sealing itself back up. My head pounded in agony as my body throbbed in unbelievable pain, which was odd considering it normally didn’t hurt until I had hit the ground.

Speaking of which, the gate must have spat me out really high up, because normally I would have hit the earth by now. Oh well, at least it didn’t spit me out into space like it did the last… oh, what was it? Three… four hundred times? Meh, whatever.

Anyway, the aforementioned wind clued me in pretty quickly that yes, I was indeed inside an atmosphere, which was an improvement at least. Clumsily, I swung my arms around to try to twist about in the air. I couldn’t fly just yet-

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*Brief Interjection From Twilight Sparkle*

Hi everypony, this is Princess Twilight Sparkle here! I was just reading back over the beginning of this journal and I noted that Sunspot failed to fully explain what he meant by, “dimension jumping”. Now, as a researcher, the concept of parallel worlds is one that has completely fascinated me ever since I learned about the possibilities of viable wormholes created by Neighstein-Rosen bridges, as proposed by Albert Neighstein, the most famous mathematician in Equestrian history.

The concept, put simply, is this: picture time and space as a book, with the pages of it representing the individual planes of reality. A Neightstein-Rosen bridge would allow a pony to, so to speak, fold one of the pages on itself to deposit somepony from one place to the other without the pony having to traverse the space. The bridge would be incredibly unstable, and would only exist for a few seconds, but ideally it could be feasibly used for travel by a particularly gifted unicorn.

What Sunspot does is something far more advanced! Instead of merely folding the page, he tears a hole through them, plunging upwards or downwards as deep as he wants, and then depositing himself on the other side while simultaneously sealing the hole safely and neatly. He can’t do this on his own; in fact, nopony can. Instead, he uses an advanced piece of technology that he refers to as a “Superdimensional Key”. Apparently, it is one of the last working pieces of technology that still exist from his home, one that can bypass most of the rules of time and space by exploiting “loopholes”. When I inquired as to what exactly those loopholes were, the answer he gave me was so complicated and beyond our current stage of scientific progress that I felt as if he was speaking in another language.

However, one thing that I managed to gather was that he has utterly no control over it! Time, space, it matters little to the device, but as to where it will deposit him... well, that’s anypony’s guess. He has just as much chance of appearing on top of a giant bed and promptly falling asleep as he does appearing smack dab in the middle of the Sun. It’s wild, unpredictable, and leaves him totally helpless to the whims of fate.

It is a guaranteed escape device, but he has no guarantee that it won’t spit him out somewhere worse!

It’s actually quite awful when you think about it. Throwing your fate up in the air like that, not knowing where it will land, uncertain if you’re life’s about to end…. Oh Celestia, it’s horrible! I’m getting shivers just thinking about it as I’m writing! SPIKE! CAN YOU… Oh wait I’m still writing. I forgot he can’t hear me.

*End Interjection*

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-which was a bit of a downer, and my whole body felt weird and… I guess “stubby” is the best word to describe it. Yeah. “Stubby.” That’s a good way to put it. I felt very “Stubby”.

Stubby, stubby, all aboard the Stubby! Ok I’ll stop.

I agree Sunny! Stubby is a GREAT word! Maybe not as good as “Chimmycherrychanga” or “kumquat” or “bamboozle,” but still really funny!!!

Anyway, I finally managed to twist myself about in the air to get a better look at where I was going to land. Which led to my shocking realization that I… really didn’t have all that long to wait!

Because guess what was rushing up to meet me?! A nice, big, friendly, absolutely terrifying mountain!

Hi Mr. Mountain! Please don’t break all my bones!

I guess it was because I asked nicely, as my fall didn’t actually break anything! In fact, it was rather soft, seeing as I managed to hit a snow bank! OH BOY that was fun! Rolling down the unbelievably (infeasibly!) tall mountainside, in the middle of an avalanche! Ha! And you can bet it felt like being run over by, well, a mountain! No, strike that, that’s actually happened to me. Maybe… half a mountain? A third? Yeah, let’s go with a third!

Down, down, down I went, until I ran smack into a rocky outcropping. My jaw clicked harshly as my chin slammed into the jet black rock, the weight of all the snow pounding away at my back as it sloughed around me. For what felt like hours all I could do was lay there as the snow just continued to pile up on top of me, my head reeling in pain and possibly a broken jaw.

Eventually, however, it stopped.

My world was dark and frozen. There was so much snow and ice on top of me that I could hardly move a muscle. The hot pounding of my body was rapidly being replaced by a terrifying numbing sensation, and it was only by working my jaw up and down and rapidly blinking my eyes that I was able to ensure that I didn’t pass out! A thought occurred to me as I lay there, a thought that had come up before, but never with as much hope as I had then.

Is this it? Is this how I finally die? Oh please oh please let this finally be my end! I want to die! I want to die so-

NO! I WILL NOT DIE! I MUST SURVIVE! I MUST LIVE! LIVE AND PROTECT! PROTECT HIM AT ALL COST! AT ANY COST! LIVE! LIVE! LIVE! LIVE!!

And thus my brain screamed at me mercilessly, just like it always did when I was in these kinds of situations. How could I forget? This was my purpose. The only reason I was created.

Live. Live at any cost. Any cost.

Ignore the pain. Ignore the pressure. Ignore the numbness! That’s just your environment trying to distract you. Because it wants to beat you. It wants you to die. You can’t let it win. You can’t let it beat you! Nothing will beat you! Nothing CAN beat you!

The ice and snow was freezing, but I didn’t care! Through sheer force of will alone, I began to shovel my way up. My lungs (holy shit my lungs were bigger!) were screaming for air (which was strange. I normally didn’t need air), and bright spots appeared in my field of vision, which was equally as peculiar as I literally couldn’t see anything!

I don’t know where I got that kind of strength, I really don’t. By all rights I should have already been dead. But I did it anyway. I tunneled through twenty feet of ice and snow, my appendages rubbed raw and red and bleeding as they broke through the surface.

Pulling myself out of the hole, I climbed on top of the snow pile, taking in lungful’s of thin mountain air as my oxygen deprived brain scrambled to make sense of what was happening. Somewhere in the back of my head I made note that I was standing on all fours, and this, for some reason, registered as ‘upright’. But for the moment I couldn’t have cared less! I was free! I was alive! HA!

Despite my lack of breath, I tilted my head back and let loose a shrill cry of victory, my vocal chords constricting as they rang out across the mountainside, the wind catching the scream and carrying it off to who knows where.

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*Excerpt from the Canterlot Gazette*

Princess Celestia refuses to comment on the possibility of Mountain Yetis returning to the Canterlotian Mountains, despite the scream that was heard loud and clear yesterday evening. Princess Luna, when asked about the cry, merely proposed that it was some kind of demented bird, despite the decibel and pitch exactly matching the tones that a bereaved Yeti is viable to make. If the Yetis truly are returning to their old stomping grounds in the Canterlotian Mountain Range, what could this mean for the profitable gem mining industries that have taken root above our Capital?

*End Excerpt*

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I panted in exertion, a wild, unrestrained grin bursting onto my face. Oh, I loved feeling like this! It’s ironic: the only times I truly feel alive is when I am practically inches away from death! Oh, the Grim Reaper must hate me! I must have teased him half to death by now! Ha! Get it! Death? Because he’s the grim reaper… oh forget you guys! I thought it was funny and you have no say in my choice of comedy!

Still, I’m certain the Grim Reaper doesn’t altogether hate me. I am, after all, his biggest provider of souls. Both innocent and otherwise.

In any case, I’m pretty sure I screamed myself into unconsciousness, because when I woke back up the blizzard had cleared up somewhat, and the stars and moon were shining down on me from high in the sky.

I was lying on my side, half of my body almost frozen to death, but for the life of me I could barely feel the cold. And I didn’t care.

In case I haven’t made it abundantly clear, I cared very little about anything near the beginning of my adventure. This was partly due to the fact that I had done this so many times before already. I knew that in just a few hours my wounds would be fully healed, my bones would be stronger than mithril, my senses would be keener than any other living creature, and I would be, yet again, nigh on immortal.

At least, that’s what I thought. I hadn’t realized anything was different just yet. But I’m skipping too much, BACK TO THE NARRATIVE. Wait, can this even be called a narrative?

Meh, you’re doing alright. Trust me, I’ve read stories that were far worse my heterochromatic friend! Particularly involving me in erotic situations! XP

The only thing that occupied my thoughts at that moment was the night sky above me. Because oh, by every god I have ever met, that was the most beautiful star-scape I had ever seen! The moon hung in the star-dotted sky directly above me, positioned perfectly so that I didn’t even have to twist my head to see it. It’s silvery-white crescent shape was tilted at just the right angle so that it looked like my old friend the Cheshire Cat was grinning down at me. With just a push of my imagination, I could almost see his crazy eyes staring down at me, like he’s going to dunk my head into the teapot again.

The stars twinkled quietly in the night. And you want to know something amazing? I could actually hear them!

*Twinkle Twinkle! * went the stars as I stared up at them, the tiny little dots of brilliant white light blinking down at me, as if they were winking in glee. Like they were sharing some kind of cosmic joke that they found absolutely hilarious!

Which, at first, seemed ridiculous to me. I’m privy to most of the jokes the universe had in its repetoire, and while a few of them are indeed very funny, well… let’s just say that it’s a big bag of jokes. Not all of them were gems.

Oh look at that, I’m getting sidetracked again! HA! Where has my attention span gone today? I guess this is a good point to take a break for a bit. Clear my head and whatnot. I think I see Pinkie Pie coming over the hill. I’ll go see what she’s doing. Be right back!

…………

Alright, I’m back. That was fun but confusing. Word of warning: don’t ever ask Pinkie Pie what her favorite food is. It will lead to all sorts of whacky food related adventures

I got to eat a snow monster! Made of ICE CREAM! Sure wish I had had a cherry and chocolate sauce to go with it though….

Now, let’s return to the story. And hopefully we’ll have no more interruptions this time.

So where was I? Oh, the stars! So, I lay there staring up at the moon and stars for what felt like hours. My eyes slowly tracked its progress across the sky, the snow below me slowly heating up and becoming slushy and wet, soaking through what I assumed at the time were my clothes and seeping into my skin. I knew I should get up if I didn’t want to catch hypothermia, but in all honesty… I just couldn’t bring myself to move! The sight above me held me in total sway! I felt captivated, and a curious sensation of déjà vu swept over me.

I had the unshakable feeling that I had seen this before.

Somewhere long ago.

Long, long, loooooooong ago.

Someplace that I had felt safe. Where I could allow myself to feel tired.

Where I could allow myself to let go…. To lose control….

When I could see the world through the eyes of someone else… the world….

Heliot

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*Brief Interjection from Twilight Sparkle*

Pronounced {Heel} – {lee} – {ot}. Ot sounds like *Yacht*

*End Interjection*

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The sky looked just like Heliot’s.

The stars, the wind, the way the moon shone, everything. It was like a painter had ripped a memory of nighttime on Heliot from my mind and did her damnedest to recreate it above me using some kind of cosmic paintbrush.

It was unsettling. A shudder raced over my body that had nothing to do with the cold.

But wait…no! There were mistakes in that sky. The stars were all wrong! That constellation was off! It should be in the southern hemisphere, not the northern! And the moon was ever so slightly too big!

Also, there were no planetary rings wrapping around the sky. No giant X formed above me.

WELL, THOU TRULY ARE CRITICAL OF OUR WORK!!! WE WOULD LIKE TO SEE THINESELF DO ANY BETTER!!!

Luna, I believe he is referring to the work of our Mother. No need for you to take offense, dear sister.

OH….

I fell into a curious melancholy as a thought struck me. Perhaps these “mistakes” had been intentional. Like the cosmic artist had set out to remake the night sky of Heliot, only to learn of the fate that had befallen the planet, and afterwards she just gave up, knowing no one would be left alive to appreciate her work.

Or, maybe, she had been unable to finish out of heartbreak. Perhaps the thought of that beautiful place burning away to nothing was too terrible for her to even consider, and had deliberately altered her portrait so as to keep some of the harsh memories at bay.

Either way, the likeness floored me (which isn’t saying much considering I hadn’t even gotten up yet!) but as another shiver passed over my body (this time definitely from the cold), I realized I had been laying there for far too long, and that the time had for me to rise up, get to work, and repair the terrible damage that had been done to my body.

What? You thought I didn’t know something was wrong?! Do you even have any idea of how long I’ve lived?? I know what my body is supposed to feel like! And I certainly hadn’t been lying there long enough to lose all feeling in my fingers and toes. Which just begged the question: where were they?

My question was immediately answered as I rolled over onto my belly and was immediately faced with the curious sensation of having my hind legs curl up beneath me, my joints facing the wrong way like those of a strangely plumed bird. Looking down, I saw… well, at first I couldn’t see anything, because my appendages matched the color of the snow.

Two small nubs rested before me, bleary and indistinct. As my eyes adjusted to the dim lighting of the moon, my mouth flopped open onto the ground. I blinked my eyes rapidly, trying to assure myself I wasn’t ins ome half baked delusion. NOPE! STILL REAL!

Hooves. Plain and simple. I had hooves instead of hands.

All the gears in my head stopped turning for just a moment, creating a nearly audible *GRRK!* sound. Numbly, I stared at the new appendages, observing how they flexed like suction cups when I tried to make a fist. Turning to look back over myself, I was greeted with the sight of a totally and one hundred percent equine body.

‘Divide.’

“WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--!!” I screamed, my mouth flying open once again in pure abject terror. Oh, that was really fun to feel! Can you even guess when the last time I had felt terror was? I mean, holy Celestia, it felt great! The complete and total loss of mental faculties, the adrenaline (that is what pony’s have right?) igniting my veins, the sickening feeling of your stomach dropping! OH IT WAS GREAT! You guys probably don’t realize just how rewarding being able to be truly scared is! I mean, you probably do, but you most definitely take it for granted! Because it’s really, really fun! I understand completely why horror movies are a thing! It’s incredible!

I’m getting off topic. Bad brain! Back to work!

“Oi! Get ahold of yourself!” the other half of me snapped, slapping an imaginary hoof across my newly-ponified face. The nerves of my cheek tingled as a ghostly impression of the blow was felt, and I turned to stare fearfully at myself. “Calm down! You’re going to start a second avalanche!” I said to myself, eyes narrowed in contempt.

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*Brief Interjection from Twilight Sparkle*

Once again, I feel I must interject to explain something that Sunspot failed to fully explain. I understand this must be annoying to read, but trust me, without my editing this passage would be an indecipherable mess! Anyway, Sunspot can utilize a curious mental trick that he likes to call, “dividing.” Essentially, you take different portions of your mind, and devote them to different tasks. It’s like making a clone of yourself that only you can interact with. Sort of. Well, not even that really. It’s more… I don’t know. Metaphysical I guess. It’s all in his head. Like… a coping mechanism!

Anyway, when he “divides,” his mental capabilities are split up into pieces, letting one part of his brain focus on just a few things while the other does something else. In this instance, half of his mind is completely and utterly terrified and, and thus is venting that terror in the only way he knew how to. The other is merely confused, and trying to use logic to break out of all that confusion. It’s a remarkable technique that he was kind enough to teach me. I wrote a book and several research papers concerning the subject in case you’d like some extra information, but if you’re too lazy to go and actually look them up and just read them for yourselves (RAINBOW DASH!), I’ll do my best to summarize.

I CANT HELP IT YOUR TOO BORING TWILIGHT!

To start off, try thinking of a concept that you know for a fact to be true. Like, for instance, gravity. You know that gravity works, you’ve seen evidence all your life. And with the exception of magic, gravity will continue to work to some degree regardless of whatever outside influences attempt to interfere.

For simplicity’s sake, I’ll explain it to you the same way he taught me: hold a rock in your hoof, and convince yourself that it will fall when you let it go. Then toss it into the air. Sure enough, the stone went up, and then fell back to earth. Gravity worked, and without magic, it will still work. But that’s just the beginning!

Pick the stone back up and hold it in front of you again. Now, here comes the tricky part: you need to convince yourself, totally and completely, that when you throw it again, the rock will not come back down. It will go against every concept you believe in, but you have to do it. You have to believe.

Toss the stone into the air. Sure enough, no magic was used, and thus the stone fell back to the ground. But for a brief moment, you were able to believe that it wouldn’t.

Now, here comes the brain breaking part! After picking up the rock again, you need to convince yourself that it will both fall and stay in the air at the same time! You need to hold both beliefs in your head, firmly and totally. It’s unbelievably challenging, but once you achieve it, then the real fun begins! With enough practice, doing something like this eventually becomes easy! You’ll be able to play mind games with yourself, like building an imaginary room and have part of your mind hide something, and the other part of your mind find it!

Do this often enough, and you can even start to have whole conversations with yourself! It may sound insane, but trust me, it works! Parts of your mind can focus on one thing, while another half focuses on something else! IT’S THE ULTIMATE MULTITASKING TOOL!

The only drawbacks are that your mental faculties are also drained much faster using this method, and it makes you look, well… crazy! I asked him how he ever came up with this idea, and he related to me an account of how he was trapped in an inescapable box for… an undisclosed amount of time, and eventually got lonely enough that he developed the technique in order to have someone to talk to. As to how he stayed alive without food or water, or even how he escaped… he failed to elaborate on either points.

Anyway, back to the task at hand.

*End Interjection*

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“But I’m a HORSE!” I shouted, stomping my new hoof on the ground. “Why am I a HORSE?!”

“I have no idea!” I shouted back, before tapping a hoof to my chin. Which, by the way, is a very odd thing to observe/do. Normal equine hooves don’t function that way, and they certainly don’t twist one hundred and eighty degrees!

Actually, after taking the time to properly examine the forearm of a pony, I have concluded that the skeletal structure is more similar to that of my own than I had initially thought. Or, since my audience is most likely of a different variety, a human’s anatomy. Rather than the single solid bone that would normally be found in the forelimb of an equine, the Equestrian Pony instead has three bones mimicking the structure of a normal biped arm, with a solid bone connecting the shoulder to the ‘elbow’ and then two bones branching off to the hoof. These two bones mimic the radius and tibia found in the forearm, allowing the ‘forehoof’ to twist of a pony to twist, thus enabling a far wider range of motions. This can also explains the existence of doorknobs.

The elbow is curious, as it seems to be reversed from the normal human elbow. Rather than letting the hoof fold outward, it instead allows it to contract inwards towards the body. Their hoof, on the other hand, employs a sort of suction-cup like structure made of cartilage, along with a tiny gland containing miniscule amount of magic (regardless of subspecies) in order to grasp and manipulate objects. When pressed gently onto an object, the hoof becomes malleable and flexible, allowing that object to be ‘grabbed’. But, if enough weight is placed upon it (such as the full body weight of a pony) the hoof will become hard and ridged in order to support the weight. This produces the distinctive *clop* sound whenever a pony walks, which I still find adorable even to this day.

~~The internal organs of ponies on the other hand~~ ~~STAY ON TARGET!~~ FUCK YOU I DO WHAT I WANT!!!

Lan sakes colt! Learn to have some decency in your language!

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, the internal organs of ponies are again more similar to that of a human’s rather than an equine. They have a heart, liver, a pair of kidneys, and a stomach in the approximate same area as a human would. The biggest difference is—

dfngm;oawfkg [-\

My human sense was tingling! Was he talking about humans?! Ohhhh, yes he waaaaas! Of course, why wouldn’t you talk about humans! Humans are a fascinating subject! What with their sophisticated society, their hands, their grasp of higher thought processes, their hands, their rich history and tendancy for warefare, THEIR HANDS! I’ve long been a firm believer than humans once roamed the land of Equestria but were-[=[---------------------------------/

*
Teach her to steal my fucking journal! Sometimes I seriously hate that fucking unicorn. Bon Bon needs to learn to keep her on a leash. She’s a joy to be around sometimes, but I find her over excitable nature to be a little… taxing. Anyway!

--***__***--

“Genetic manipulation on this level should be theoretically impossible!” I mumbled. I frowned as my body continued to spasm, caught in the throes of a panic attack. “Something must have gone wrong with the gateway? Maybe some sort of field or ray?”

I flexed my eyes, trying to shift my vision from normal color into other levels of the spectrum. Which I can normally do by the way! Natural infrared and ultraviolet vision! Of course it makes me look like Cujo when I use them, but still: awesome.

All that happened was a sharp twinge of pain shot through my brain, and my vision blurred as I went cross-eyed! “Owwwwwww!” I groaned, slapping my hooves to my face as I rolled over onto my back, sticking the back of my head into the snow in order to alleviate the burn.

“Welp, I got nothing!” I announced, throwing my hooves into the air.

“Then you’re useless,” I groaned.

‘Unify.’

Another twinge passed through me as my consciousness melded back together. I frowned as I removed my hooves from my eyes, staring accusingly up at the not-exact-but-still-creepily-familiar-sky. All that I got for my efforts were the stars twinkling down at me again, as if they were laughing at me now.

Sighing, I rolled over onto my stomach (barrel?) and began the laborious process of getting to my feet hooves. It was weird, trying to learn an entirely new system of movement, but luckily I am both a fast learner and deceptively patient.

A furious grin broke out across my new face as I stood shakily on all four hooves, my new and untested legs quivering as they struggled to hold up my full weight. I grit my teeth as I wobbled, flexing my muscles in order to stay upright. I let out a satisfied hiss as I succeeded.

Then came the hardest part: learning to walk.

Left ~~foot~~ hoof forward. Followed by right rear leg. Left hoof- NO RIGHT!!- *WHUMP*

Needless to say it was a long and arduous process, accompanied by many stumble, falls, teeth grinding, and near avalanches. Nevertheless I persisted, until I was satisfied that I was at least passable in that regards. It was made all the more difficult by the simple fact that my front hooves double as my arms, thus making it feel like I was both crawling around on all fours and walking upright. Trust me when I say that it was very disconcerting for me.

Nevertheless, I succeeded.

There’s not much that can compare to the feeling that swept over me in that moment. Standing on my own ~~two feet~~ four hooves (it’s going to take a while to get used to writing that), ~~walking~~ trotting over to the edge, and staring out across the valley.

God, I’d never been more proud of myself in my whole life! My new heart beat in my chest, pumping my new blood through my veins in anticipation. Before me, outlined by the moon and the stars, lay a whole new world of adventure for me! And I would be entering it alone, unprepared, and ignorant of any and all dangers that could come my way.

And I’d never been so satisfied in all my life.

Bring it on! Throw everything you have at me! I’ll chew it up and spit it back out like the garbage it is. And if I can’t… well then, I still win.

Because, like Rainbow Dash once said to me, I’m not reckless.

I’m just a madman with a death wish!
Im just a madman with a death wish HOLY CELESTIA HES SO COOL!!!

Now, having said that, I believe this is as good as any place to stop for now. My stomach’s starting to throw some really nasty curse words at me, and it just dropped an octave. I see Big Mac pulling the apple cart, so I guess I might as well hitch a ride. Not that the big lug will notice a little extra weight. By all that is sacred that pony is fucking huge!

Wonder what Granny Smith is cooking tonight. Hooves crossed for some delicious apple fritters!

Afternote: CALLED IT!!

Ramblings of a Mad God

by Talshain

Foreword

Hello Mr. Mountain!