Shining Armor set his silverware down. “Well that was...certainly something.”
Cadance wiped a large ring of sauce off her mouth and set her napkin down. “A little heavy on the cheese, but otherwise, yes! Remind me to thank the Chef Jalapeno tomorrow morning at breakfast.”
“Sure thing,” Shining muttered, his stomach groaning in disapproval.
“Cookie!” Flurry Heart spoke up from her high-chair.
Both turned to look at her.
Cadance sighed. “No, Flurry. You’ve been sneaking cookies when you’re not allowed, so you aren’t getting any for dessert. Besides, you almost didn’t finish your food; don’t go telling me that you’re only hungry now.”
Flurry pouted.
“She’s been sneaking cookies?” Shining asked.
“Why do you think she hasn’t been hungry at dinner lately?”
“I dunno, I thought it was because she finally acquired her taste for love.”
“Acquired what!?”
“A taste for love! You know, like any changeling! Isn’t that right, Flurry?” He gave the filly a kiss. “Om nom nom!” she acted, before creating a little buzzing sound with her mouth and giggling.
Cadence playfully rolled her eyes. “Anyways, I’ve caught her a couple times, but she gets away with sneaking cookies more often than I notice.”
“So we set a trap then. Put a cookie under a box and catch her red-handed.”
“Shining!” Cadance playfully replied.
“Hmm, you’re right. She’s too smart to fall for that. All we’d end up with is another case of Sunburst stuck in a box being forced to play house.”
“As I was saying,” Cadance continued, “You are a trained guard.”
Shining smirked. “You want me to help guard the cookie jar from Flurry? Gee Cadance, I’m not sure, sounds kinda tough!”
Cadance rolled her eyes. “Well, I could always ask a more capable guard if you don’t think you’re up to it,” she teased.
“Hey, I wasn’t the captain of the guard for nothing!” Shining playfully replied.
Both of them giggled.
Cadance began to get Flurry out of the high-chair and yawned. “Wow...that extreme tennis took a lot out of me today.” She levitated Flurry over to Shining, who took her in his own aura. “I think I’m gonna turn in early tonight. You two enjoy the rest of your evening.”
Shining and Cadance kissed, and Cadance began to head out.
“Goodnight Caddy!” Shining called out.
“Nighty-night Shi-*yawn*-ning.”
Shining took Flurry to the private hosting spaces that they used as a de-facto family room.
On the floor was a blanket laid out for Flurry to play on, with some of her plush toys scattered around it.
Shining set Flurry on the blanket, then took a seat of his own on the sofa. While grabbing a comic book off the center-table, he took note of the current contents of the cookie jar also seated there. He leaned back and looked over at Flurry, who had already picked up her plushies and was having Whammy and a plush bear duel it out. Shining opened up his comic book and began reading.
Some time went by, with nothing happening other than some occasional isolated chuckles and words from Shining as he read, and Flurry’s plush wars.
groooaaann
“Oh Celestia...” Shining muttered, clutched his stomach. His bowels had had enough of those spicy tacos. He glanced up at Flurry.
“Whammy go boom!” she acted out the plush bear saying as her favorite snail was “blasted” into the air from some imaginary explosion. “Baba want cwistaw!”
She’d be engrossed to notice, Shining determined. His bowels groaned again. And I need to go or else this couch is going to be gross! he thought as threw down his comic book, quickly shoved the cookie jar in a cabinet below the in-wall bookshelf, and dashed out of the room.
Coming back into the room a few minutes later, he panicked as he saw Flurry at the now-open cabinet, the cookie jar on the floor, the lid off it, and her reaching into it.
“No, Flurry!”
Shining picked her up in his magic and levitated her in the air.
“Baah!” Flurry whined as the distance between her and the cookies grew.
“Your cookie thievery stops today, young lady! It’s time for a time-out for you!”
“Na!”
“What are you gonna do to stop me?”
Flurry picked up a nearby manticore plushie and chucked it at Shining. It skipped off his face and onto the couch. “Flurry, I think you’re going to need something a little more powerful than that if you wanna stop me.” Shining picked up the plush in his aura and brought it over in front of him. “I mean look at him, he’s harmless!”
The plush raised it’s “claws”, just before leaping out of his aura and onto his face.
“AAH! SWEET CELESTIA GET IT OFF!” Shining yelled as he shook his face around. He yanked on the plush with his magic, the soft claws of the manticore dragging along his muzzle as he ripped it off his face.
It flailed in his aura.
“UAHH!” He chucked it to the side. Completely freaked out, he looked around the room. That’s when he noticed the bookshelf.
Looking up at the ten-shelf high bookcase...he saw that they were all lined with plushies staring down at staring down at him.
His ears flopped against his head as he swallowed a lump in his throat. “Nice plushies...” he squeaked.
They all lifted their forelimbs and dove down at him.
“AAAHHH!” Backpedaling doing little to nothing, Shining found himself swarmed, a mountain of soft, cuddliness forcing him down.
Thinking quick, he charged his horn and blasted the plushies off of him. He then grabbed the cookie jar and bolted out of the room as fast as he could run.
Still clutching the cookie jar close to him with his magic, Shining Armor peaked around the corners of a hallway intersection. He signaled five guardsponies to follow him down the left path.
“Look, Prince Shining, I get you want to play along with your daughter’s little game, it’s honestly really precious, but do you really need a whole squad of us to do it?” Flash Sentry asked.
Shining whipped his head around and pressed his nose up against Flash’s. “Flash, you haven’t seen the things I’ve seen; the stuffed horrors I’ve witnessed. We’re not talking about a few rebellious plushies coming to life with magic. We’re talking about an army; legions of tiny, soft creatures come to life with one goal: obtain these cookies!” Shining pointed to the jar.
“You mean like that!?” a guard called out, pointing ahead.
Everyone turned to see tens, maybe even a hundred plus tens of plushies, all marching around the corner of a hallway. They carried pens, straws, rubber bands, spoons; weapons of all kinds from the desk and dinner table, as well as some flashlights to serve as torches.
“Mother of Celestia...” Flash spoke in disbelief.
“Everypony retreat!” Shining called out.
They turned and began running the other way, when they were blocked off by the sudden emergence of more plushies from one of the rooms, along with Flurry herself, who was wearing Shining’s formal/decorative guard captain hat.
“We’re surrounded!” one of the guards announced.
“Then we hold our ground!” Shining declared. “Defensive positions, stallions!”
All got out their spears (which were dulled, ceremonial ones, at Shining’s request), and assumed a circular formation.
The hallway went quiet.
Flurry charged her horn, and one by one, each bulb in the hallway burnt out, darkening everything until only the moonlight shone in. “Cookie!” She called out, pointing to the jar.
The plushies charged.
The guards swung their spears, trying to knock away the plushies. Shining whacked a stuffed cat, sending it into the wall, where it simply bounced and leaped off, sailing right into one of the guards next to Shining.
“AUGH!” the guard cried out as the plush feline clung to his face, completely blocking his vision. Plushies crawled up his limbs and began to pull him down; he flailed as he was consumed by the sea of fluff.
“Lancer, no!” the guard next to him called out. “Take this you little monsters!” The guard swung his spear extra hard, knocking a large timberwolf plush out an open window. “Ha-ha!”
His excitement was short lived, however, as the plush suddenly began rising back up from below the window sill, sitting atop Flurry’s head as she scowled at him from outside.
“Huh?” He looked over to where Flurry had been at the start of the battle. She wasn’t there. He turned back. “Oh crap.”
“Addak!” Flurry shouted.
The Timberwolf plush pounced on him. However, he managed to roll with the pounce and ultimately threw the timberwolf back into the sea of plushies. His victory was short lived though, as a stuffed bear pole vaulted up onto his back using his dropped spear, followed by said spear being shoved sideways into his mouth and pulled upon by the bear as a makeshift bridle. A firm smack to his backside from the bear sent him rearing up and charging forward, helpless as he plowed into his own fellow guard, knocking the other into a waiting blanket that constrained him.
Flash meanwhile was using his wings to his advantage, hovering just out of range of the plushies’ melee attacks, while he himself was still easily able to attack.
Flurry screamed in anger, then proceeded to shout “Birdies!”
All of a sudden, plushies of an eagle, a falcon, and a phoenix, began to swoop down. Flash bolted up, but unfortunately, the guard under control of the stuffed bear was next in the line of fire. “HEEELLLP!” the guard screamed, as he was carried off and away.
“Oops,” Flash uttered.
Shining looked around. Three down. “Reorganize!”
The remaining three ponies regrouped into a triangle.
“Ow!” Shining spoke, getting hit in the face by a rubber band that was launched. He looked up and spotted a bunch more plushies ready to launch. Shining gulped.
Flash turned his attention. “Prince Shining!” He dove in front of his prince, becoming a meat shield as he was pelted by all the shots intended for Shining. He flopped to the ground afterwards.
“Flash!” Shining called out, erecting a shield and kneeling to speak with his downed soldier. “Flash, you’re one of my best stallions, I can’t lose you!”
“I’m sorry, Shining...but it’s better me...*cough* than you!”
“No!”
“You’ll have to go on without me. Tell Twilight...*cough*”
“Yes?”
“Hang on a moment, I need some water.” Flash pulled out a water bottle that had been strapped to his armor, and took a good long drink. “Ah. That’s a lot better. I had a throat tickle that was making me cough.” He put the bottle back. “Now, where were we?”
“You told me to tell Twily something,” Shining stated.
“Oh right.” Flash took a deep breath and continued on in a dramatic tone “Tell...your sister…I… *ELCK*!” Flash Sentry stuck his tongue out to the side of his mouth.
“Flash! No!”
“Da-da go boom!” Flurry called out, as the plushies launched two pillows, striking the shield. “I want cookie!”
Shining readied his spear again, looking around for who was left. He spotted the last guard reluctantly shaking hooves with one of Whammy’s eye antennae.
“Vigilant! How could you!” Shining called out from his shield-bubble.
“I’m sorry Prince Shining…but they got my one and only Mr. Fuzzybear!” he cried.
A plush bear with its paws tied up behind it was marched forward by a manticore plushie.
“YOU MONSTERS!” Shining slammed his hoof against the shield.
Suddenly, the shield began to falter. The plushies were poking and prodding it with pens and paperclips. Meanwhile, a couple of pillows were launched at it.
Shining took a deep breath, and disabled the shield by “bursting” it outwards, forcing the plushies back.
He had to make a run for it.
Levitating the cookie jar above his head, he carefully tip-toed through the swarms of plushies trying to grab onto him. Eventually, he reached the other side, and turned around to face them. “Looks like your army is ‘too small’ to defeat me!” he taunted.
Flurry swooped in from behind and snatched the jar out of his aura. He looked up and watched as the thing he swore to protect had been lost to the enemy.
“NOOOOO!!!” he shouted, as a pillow hit him. He toppled over, down and out.
Flurry turned around to see the results of her victory. Every single enemy pony had been eliminated. She smiled deviously as she flew back down to the ground and began to walk to her bedroom with her spoils. However, there was a noise. Flurry turned around to see the large figure of her dad, towering over her with hooves held high. She screamed as Shining came down on her…and gave her a raspberry.
He levitated the jar back to himself while she was distracted.
Once he finished, and Flurry had stopped giggling, she looked up and saw the jar with him yet again. Her eyes went wide in shock.
“Cookie!” she cried out in despair.
“Looks like I’ve found your ultimate weakness, little Miss General. No plush army can save you from a raspberry! He leaned down and did it again, Flurry giggling too much to focus on keeping her army active.
The other guards sat up, all starting to chuckle from the event.
Shining pulled his head back, and waited for Flurry to stop giggling again. “But, you’re still getting a time-out for eating all those cookies when you weren’t supposed to, understood?”
Flurry’s face fell.
“What in Equestria happened here?” Cadance asked in surprise, looking around the hallway.
Shining looked up in surprise. “Caddy! What are you doing up? And is that more salsa on your face?”
Cadance quickly wiped her hoof across her mouth. “Oh, I just got up to get some...water…But, uh, the real question is: what are you doing?”
He looked around and saw a sea of limp plushies. “...Playing with Flurry,” he uttered.
“After her bedtime?”
Shining looked back at the guards for help.
“Lost track of time!”, “We were tiring her out!”, “She won a bet in poker!”, “I’m just here for the overtime pay!”
Shining turned back to Cadance and gave a sheepish grin.
Cadanced raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Give me a massage when you come to bed and we’ll forget about all this?”
“...Yes, Cadence…”
“And tell Flurry that if she does this a third time, she’s getting no plushies for a week.”
Shining’s eyes went wide. “A third?!”
After the plushies were cleaned up, and the guards were walking out, Shining stopped Flash. “By the way, what did you want me to tell Twily?”
Flash blinked. “Oh! Just that I found a notebook she left behind. I figured you could mail it back to her or something.”
Shining breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank Celestia. For a moment I thought you wanted me to tell her you loved her or something.”
“Well that too.”
“WHAT!?”
“I’m kidding! Also, Flurry’s getting into the cookies again.”
Shining turned. “Flurry, NO!”
