Smolder huffed as she flew down the halls, searching for Gallus. He knew it was time for their weekly picnic over by the falls, and when he failed to show up to help them carry everything, she was tasked with finding him.
Smolder spotted a few students walking together. She recognized one of them, but couldn’t remember his name; the other two she didn’t know at all. “Hey!” she yelled at them.
They all turned around and waved at Smolder. “Hey, Smolder! What’s up?”
“Have you guys seen Gallus anywhere?” Smolder landed on the floor and crossed her arms. “He’s late for something important.”
“I think I saw him going towards Miss Pinkie’s room. I’d help you look, but I’m showing some new students around right now!” The other two beside him waved at Smolder.
“Nah, that’s fine. I’ll find him.” Smolder turned around and took off again, before turning around. “Oh, and uh, welcome to the school.” She waved goodbye to all of them and headed off towards the classrooms.
~~~
“Yeah, he was in here. Asked Pinkie some questions and took off for the kitchen. Something about meat? And a project? I dunno.”
Smolder groaned. She was tempted to just go back and tell the others that she couldn’t find him. She knew, however, that Silverstream would be upset at Gallus being a no-show. “Ugh, alright. Thanks anyways Cherry.”
Cherry Blossom bid Smolder a good day as she flew out of the classroom, muttering obscenities under her breath. Luckily, the kitchen was right around the corner, she could find Gallus quickly and head back up to the rest of her friends.
Arriving at the door to the kitchen, Smolder prepared herself to chew out the birdbrain that sent her on a wild goose chase. Opening and entering the door, she immediately spotted her target. “Hey, dummy! Did you forget what time it is? It’s not like we do this, I dunno, every week!”
Gallus flicker his head over to Smolder, startled by her breaking the silence. “Oh! Uh, I guess I did lose track of time. But now that you’re here, I could use your help real quick!”
Smolder exhaled. “Now? Can’t this wait till later or something?”
“C’mon, it’ll take like five minutes.”
Smolder exhaled. “Fine, make it quick. Yona’s already getting antsy.”
Gallus rolled his eyes. “She’ll live. Now come here.” He led her over to a table where he had a plate and a bunch of ingredients set up.
“Gallus, what is this?” Smolder picked up a bag of lettuce sitting near the edge of the table and inspected it.
“Remember that culture project we have due on Monday? I thought it’d be cool to have a part dedicated to food we enjoyed back home. Being the master sandwich maker I am, making a traditional griffon sandwich was an easy choice.”
Smolder raised an eyebrow at him. “Alright, that’s fine and all, but why do you need me?”
Gallus put an arm around her. “Simple. You’re my taste tester. During my presentation, I’m going to offer any meat eaters in the room a sandwich if they want any.” He used his free claw to gesture at the display he had before him. “Brilliant, isn’t it?”
Smolder shrugged his arm off of her. “You do know most people here are herbivores, right?”
Gallus started opening bags, unfazed by her comment. “That’s a ten bit word for you, Smolder. There’s still a couple omnivores and… well, I’m not exactly sure where gems fall under, but dragons can still eat meat, can’t they?” He took a sip of water and fluttered over to the sink to wash his talons.
“Yeah, I guess. Not that often anymore.”
“Well, today and Monday you will have the chance to eat the best sandwich you’ve ever had the miraculous chance of picking up.”
Smolder facepalmed.
“Let me walk you through the steps real quick.” Gallus picked up some buns took one out of the packaging. “We start here with a sesame seed bun. It has to have sesame seeds. This is important.”
Smolder dragged her claw down her face.
“Next, we go with one slice of Swiss cheese on the bottom. You can substitute this with provolone if Swiss isn’t your game.” Gallus placed a single square slice of Swiss cheese on the bottom part of the bun and reached for the mystery bag he hadn’t opened yet.
“Here, we have some freshly sliced oven roasted turkey. It was a pain to get, but Miss Pinkie came through, along with this-“ Gallus held up some bacon strips that were under the bag of turkey, already cooked. “Took some convincing, though. Probably won’t get too much of this here.”
Gallus laid a generous portion of turkey across the Swiss cheese, folding it to stay within the bun’s parameters. “Put on as much turkey as you want. Once you do that, we put some spices on it.” He grabbed a grinder labeled ‘Istallian Medley’ and grinded the mixture all over the turkey.
“Now what we do is put some lettuce on there. Not too much, but not too little. This can be the hard part.” Gallus carefully pulled four big leaves of lettuce from the bag in Smolder’s claws and stacked them on the turkey. “This should be enough.”
Gallus clapped his claws. “We’re almost done. Let’s put a bit of onion on there.” He grabbed two rings of onion and placed them on the lettuce. “Too much onion can be overpowering. So we put the minimal amount.”
“One more slice of Swiss cheese on top. If you didn’t put a lot of turkey like we did, then skip this part. But since we have a ton on there, we’re going for two slices total.” Gallus slapped the last slice of Swiss cheese on top of everything. “Now we just have one more part.”
Grabbing the bacon strips, he split them horizontally, making shorter but just as thick strips. “We break these in half because we don’t want too much hanging off the sides. One you do that, we just put as much as we want on top of the cheese. I think I’ll do four strips for this one.” Sure enough, he laid four short strips along the cheese. Once he was done, he closed it all with the top part of the bun.
Smolder was in disbelief. “Really?”
Gallus either didn’t notice her expression or didn’t care. He cut the sandwich in half and shoved half of it into her claws. “The time for talking is over. Now taste.” He took a big bite of his half.
Smolder looked down at her half. It did look pretty good, she supposed. Shaking her head slightly, she took a bite and mulled it over.
“Well, what do ya think? Pretty amazing, huh?” Gallus shoved the rest of his half down his beak. “I think whoever tries it on Monday will love it.”
Smolder took another bite, slightly bigger than her last. “Yeah, I guess that’s a pretty great sandwich. Isn’t it kinda… simplistic for your culture’s food presentation?”
“It may be just a simple sandwich, but do you honestly need anything else?” Gallus smirked at her response. He had already begun putting everything away.
“Hmm…” Smolder ribbed her chin. “I feel like it’s missing something though…”
“Like what?”
“Maybe like… mayonnaise? And maybe some tomatoes?”
Gallus glared at her. “I despise mayo. And we were out of tomatoes, but sure, you can put some on it. Just a single slice of it, though.”
Smolder chortled. “You can get meat into pony lands, but you can’t get a tomato. Imagine that!”
Gallus waved away her words with a claw and shut the fridge. “Whatever. Should we head up and get the others now?” He flapped his wings and headed for the door.
“Yeah, before one of them starves to death.” Smolder joined him in flight, and together they headed back to the rest of their friends, eager to have their weekly picnic.