Work Text:
It would be reasonable for one to believe that when so many chickens live together on a small farm for years, they get along well. That was mostly true. They had all grown used to the small space they had been given on the farm, but while they had the whole island to run around on during the day, at night, when it was cold, most of them reconverted the seats in the crate to nests and slept there.
That was when and where squabbling started, and so, the building of houses began as soon as they found the materials to do so. Mac’s home was one of the first to be completed. On the outside, it was a bit of a shaggy hut, but it was well built, and she was slowly acquiring pencils and homemade paper and furniture to fill it with, all thanks to her building skills.
For a time, Ginger, Babs and Bunty lived in it with her. Mac was helping the other chickens build, and in the meantime, all of those who had escaped the farm were developing sleeping arrangements with those closest to them. Even if that was not the norm, most if not all would have agreed that they deserved a little bit of selfishness after all they had done.
Mac had only created one nest by the time the arrangement had been made, but in retrospect, the four of them sleeping curled up against each other had been inevitable. While each bunk on the farm could barely support two chickens, each of the women had slept beside each other woman at one point or another. Whether it was one of the three comforting Babs after one of the nightmares she was prone to, or, as much as she didn’t like to acknowledge it, the others would do the same for Mac’s. As for Ginger and Bunty, Ginger needed emotional support sometimes too.
It was silently understood that once Ginger had her own house, she and Rocky would live together as a husband and wife would. For now, though, and possibly for the last time, it was just her and the other women.
When they were still learning how to dry grass properly and stuff it into Bab’s knitting for mattresses, and she was still hard at work making enough blankets for all of them, it was easy to make a nest that was more comfortable than their bunks on the farm.
They had eaten a small dinner of nuts. Different chickens would have been left unsatisfied by such a meal, but after a life of eating only corn, it was a valued change.
“Which side would you like, Hen?”
Ginger turned around after removing her shawl for the night and saw Mac settling herself under one of Bab’s colorwork blankets. Ginger got into bed wordlessly beside Mac.
On some level, Mac had been in love with Ginger since they first met each other on the farm, still in the early stages of molting, and away from their mothers for the first time. If they were still on the farm, Mac’s love may have gone somewhere with Ginger, but they were older now. Both her and Ginger had met the only young rooster either of them had ever seen, and with Ginger’s relationship with him, their maidenhood was over.
Unbeknownst to her, Ginger was aware of Mac’s emotions but felt the arrangement they had was happier.
“Ginger?” Mac asked.
“Mmh?”
“Oh, I haven’t seen this one in a while. It came out well.” Babs spent a moment admiring her work, then got in on the opposite side of Mac.
“Ginger?” Mac continued, “you remember Edwina and Molly?”
Ginger nodded.
Bunty got in on the other side of Ginger. “Oh please, let’s not talk about them right now,” and so they didn’t.
In the end, Molly had been so much older than them that she practically babysat them all before going to the chop. Edwina had been the oldest they had become close friends with. Mac was the next oldest and had noticed that she had been laying fewer eggs in the past month, then Ginger, then Bunty, then Babs. They had always just meshed perfectly together.
After everything they had lived through as they grew up, there was no reason to believe that all of them would continue to eat, play, and work together for the rest of their lives.