In Which a Seagull Steals a Sandwich
“Hey, make sure to watch your sandwich! The gulls around here are terrible.”
Shining Armour looked back at the random passerby in confusion. They were in Canterlot, a land locked city in the middle of Equestria.
Gulls didn’t live there.
Thinking the advice pointless, Shining decided to just enjoy the sunny afternoon and eat his cucumber sandwich in peace. It had been made fresh that morning by his exasperated mother who couldn’t believe her adult son couldn’t figure out two slices of bread with dressings.
In Shining’s own defense, putting two pieces of bread together was hard and knives were dangerous.
Ignoring the fact that he was part of the Royal Gaurd.
Spying an empty bench near a lamppost, he decided that it would be the place to enjoy his lunch.
Taking a seat on the rough wood, he frowned at how uncomfortable it was. However, a seat was a seat, so he made do and readied to dine on his crisp, delicious—
“Squawk!”
Freezing mid bite and keeping his sandwich held between his hooves, Shining looked up towards the noise.
Perched upon the post was a large orange pegasus. His feathers were puffed up, his tongue flopped out of his mouth, and the look in his eyes told Shining that not a single thought happened behind them.
The face on Shining’s face could be best described as the one a son would have when they find out their best friend is dating their mom.
A face he was intimately familiar with due to his exfriend Pointdexter.
Leaping off the post, the pegasus landed next to Shining with a loud thump. He leaned into Shining’s space and stared at the sandwich held in his hooves. The pegasus smacked his lips several times giving a clear indication of what he wanted.
“Squawk!”
“No,” Shining as he furrowed his brow, “don’t I know you from somewhere?”
The pegasus shook his head.
“Wait, you’re Flash Sentry. I work with you!”
“Squawk!”
“Why are you acting like a seagull?” Shining demanded then remembered a recent meeting he had attended as part of upper management, “the budget cuts caused the guard to downsize on food again didn’t they?”
“Squaaaaaaaawk…” Flash said as he hung morosely.
“I swear, everytime we cut the budget, the guard resorts to these dumb shenanigans. I mean, how hard is it to budget correctly?!”
Flash, knowing that Shining didn’t pay rent, buy food, and came from an upper middle class family, glared.
Or he would have if he wasn’t a seagull at that moment.
Instead, following his honed gull instincts, he inched forward slowly as Shining started ranting about the lack of discipline in the guard. He opened his mouth as he came tantalizingly close to his prize of delicious, non-dumpster dived sandwich.
“—and another thing! Guards are just so lazy that— hey!” Shining noticed the ruse causing Flash to freeze mid bite. “Get away from my sandwich!”
In the age old tradition of ineffective assaults against winged nuisances, Shining waved his hooves erratically causing Flash to squawk and flap back to his perch on the lamppost. He tried to glare, but hunger and general seagullery just caused him to go back to his standard dopey expression with his tongue sticking out.
“You are not eating my sandwich. Go bother someone else!” Shining exclaimed as he shook a hoof at Flash.
Delving into his empty mind, Flash sorted through his useless thoughts and, once the inevitable nothing was procured, he settled on idling on the ground as he tried to think of something to distract Shining.
As he thought, he danced, for a given definition of the word. He hopped in tight circles while waving his wings in a weird fanning motion.
It was the dumbest thing ever witnessed by pony and caused Shining to start laughing uncontrollably. “What are you—” Shining started before a snort of laughter interrupted him, “what is even— pfft.”
As Shining laughed hysterically, tears in his eyes, Flash spun around and spied that the sandwich was now held in Shining’s shaky magic thus his strange pony bird brain deduced that now was a perfect opportunity to yoink it from him.
Lunging forward, Flash opened his mouth, tongue lolling out, as he attempted to bite down on the delicious morsel.
Just before he was able to bite it, the sandwich was yanked away from him. He face planted into the dirt, causing some of it to spill into his mouth. Flash looked up to see the scowling face of Shining.
“No,” he firmly said.
Flash stood up. He stared at the sandwich then at Shining. He then realized he was looking down on Shining thus coming to the realization that there was a simpler way to get what he wanted.
“What are you doing?” Shining asked nervously as Flash loomed over him, “stay back!”
Stopping just short of the cowering pony, Flash smacked his lips as Shining furrowed his brow, nervous suspicion colouring his expression.
“What are you— ack!”
“Squawk! Squawk! Squawk!” Flash said as he let out the war cry of his (seagull) people.
He fwapped Shining with his wings, barraging him with feathers he didn’t have the budget to get preened since he was an underpaid guard.
“Stop— Ptui! — Knock it — Ptui! — Flash!” Shining uselessly cried out.
Seizing the opportunity, Flash rushed forward and grabbed the sandwich in his beak-mouth. His prize acquired, he ceased his assault and leapt into the air, flying off to perch on one of the Canterlot Castle spires and be a nuisance to the Diarchy who hated pigeons.
“Squawk!” Flash cried out in victory as he messily munched on his reward.
Playground bullying at its finest.
Shining glared after Flash and made a note to complain about him. In the meantime, he reached into his bags and removed his back up sandwich.
“Caw!”
Freezing in place, Shining looked up at the lamppost to find a brown pegasus with a blue mohawk looking down at him with a blank expression.
“DAMMIT!”
