And how The Territory became
Not so very long ago, The Territory was a silent place. In fact, it was not the Territory at all. It was native Hawaiian Forest filled with an understory of seedlings, fern and fungi. Maile fern snaked up the trunks of large tree ferns called Hapu’u, as well as the dominant forest tree, Ohi’a Lehua. The days were filled with songs of the Hawaiian jewels, such as the ruby red I’iwi with it’s curled beak for sipping nectar, the yellow ‘Amakihi with it’s pretty little trill call, and the naughty ‘Apapane that flashed it’s observers with a white fluffy rump. At night, Hawaiian crickets could be heard as a soft background lullaby, and if you were lucky, you may catch a glimpse of the elusive Hawaiian Owl, Pueo.
But time saw the arrival of more humans to the land of the forest, and soon a sub-urban development was started. Most of the beautiful forest was replaced by plants from other countries, either intentionally or by accident. The Territory was lucky in that it’s development left it half full of forest. By the time it had become The Territory the human occupants had put effort in encouraging the return of the native forest and the suppression of it’s forest invaders, that is, except the chickens. That was almost entirely caused by the human occupants,
The first colonist chickens to The Territory were Henny Penny and her 12 chicks. Henny arrived at dusk in the center of The Territory and set about finding temporary shelter, of which there was plenty, for the night. Henny passed her days with scratching, eating, preening, clucking, scanning for predators and calling for other chickens. Lucky for her, there were chickens in The Otherlands, and they heard her. Or more specifically, Golden Boy heard. Just his luck, because although he had two hench roosters, Frankie and Bob, he had no hens, and he was scared of the human occupants. Henny was brave and accustomed to humans, so she quickly taught the roosters that the human were indeed Food Gods. Golden Boy stayed at the edge of the territory, but as the hench roosters grew older, one grew bolder, and that was Bob. Bob grew larger than Frankie and Golden Boy and he developed the habit of mooching off the human Food Gods. They liked Bob because of his pretty green tail and blue body. He was more ornamental than both Golden Boy and Frankie. Golden Boy was very much a Golden colour, and Frankie was a burnt orange and red rooster with a green tail, but that did not compare to Bob’s blond cowl, brown collar, blue sides, green tail and large wings and red comb. It was not long until Bob considered the human’s land as his territory and with his first territorial crow, The Territory was borne.
Bob, by nature was inquisitive. He would watch the humans and their strange habits of hanging coloured vegetation on lines, climb in monstrous beasts that exhaled foul smelling air and ran off with them, and chase a silver beast that roared and ate the grass. He had very little use for them, except the beautiful grain they tossed aside and the black Hen that felt safety by their presence. Bob learned that he could manipulate when they threw grain. It was hard, because they were stupid. When he crowed outside their night perch they would chase him off, he actually ended up telling them there was food outside and then they gave him food. Backwards!
Everyday Bob crowed and crowed and crowed some more. Soon, new hens arrived and Bob had a small harem. Golden Boy stayed at The Territory just long enough to witness Bob’s rise before he decided to move to the Other Side. There, the resident roosters had been forcibly moved away via a silver gridded teleportation device. There, in the Other Side were large trees with round canopies, much better roosting grounds. Frankie remained near the territory but remained mostly in the other lands bidding his time for the take over of the Territory.
Frankie had in his keeping, three sister hens. His Honeys would stay by his side, but would steal glances at the beautiful grain in The Territory. Besides, Bob was not so hard on the eyes either. Sweetie was the first to leave Frankie for the luxuries of Bob’s harem, but soon Honey and Lovey left. You can imagine what Frankie thought of that! After that, Frankie was careful around the humans, and rarely ate their grain but he made sure he coaxed the hens close enough to his territory to mate with them!
Bob fathered many chicks and spent his time watching over his hens, always careful to chase off other roosters, even the young ones. Eventually, the pull of The Other Side was too great, and one day he made the crossing. The last he saw of the humans were their inquisitive stares from inside on of the foul smelling beasts as he stood in the Other Side taking a look at the Territory.
Frankie waited a few days before emerging from Otherlands. When he did, he instantly took up housekeeping and re-acquainted himself with the hens. Bob’s bloodline had left its mark in The Territory and Bob had left behind a son who looked very much like him, and was named for him, Cockadoodle Robert II., but went by the nick name of “Small Bob”. However, many of Frankie’s offspring remained in the territory
For the most part, Frankie was mild mannered. He tolerated the presence of young roosters, and allowed young Red, Rouge, and Rudy, his own sons, to remain with him. He also let Small Bob remain. Frankie was a good rooster. One day, he heard his hen screaming in the Otherlands, and off he went to save the day! Full speed ahead, bok!bok!bok!bok!bo--------ok!
Small Bob was a lot like his father. He grew larger than the Red Roosters and because he had grown up around the humans, he was not afraid of the Food Gods. Then, one day he was surprised! The Food Gods had a chick, and she called them her mamas! She was injured and weak, and Bob wondered why the Food Gods favoured her, but she was a chicken…. So maybe the Food Gods were like big chickens!
Peace reigned in The Territory, all was good, except the few days of the dog that injured Chestnut, Bob’s cousin brother. Bob learned the ways of the Food God, the Food God chick, and he slowly climbed the pecking order. As he grew older, like his father he grew bolder, and one day when Frankie was off on the other side of the territory, Bob crowed.
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