(Here is the 5th chapter. Be warned: I go on a long, philosophical tangent in this chapter!)
"This deserves a serious reprimand on your part, Chuck." Red bounced across Terrence's nest. As the de facto president of the flock, Red was the one who dealt with all disciplinary issues that went on, and let's just say there weren't just a few. As Red would say, the worn, tattered feathers on his head became that way for a reason. Terrence, being the de jure president of the flock, watched over the parties called to attention: Chuck and the blues.
"Now do not get me wrong, the blues are not entirely faultless." Red continued. He turned to glance at the subject of his dialog. The blues were now paying attention out of fear of further abuse and physical harm. After Chuck's final punishment, they were heavily gauzed and saturated in antiseptic.
"But Chuck, inflicting corporal punishment on the blues is simply not acceptable," Red faced Chuck now. "You know they have suffered debilitating injuries. You know that this led to an infection that left in a coma for days. You know the responsibility with carrying the rattan cane. You better thank your lucky stars I heard their cries for mercy and stopped you from beating them, and so savagely at that, to death. They would have been dead. Dead, you hear me?" Red's anger was no match for Chuck's, who winced in his mind.
"On the other side: you three." Red turned his attention to the blues. "In the first place, you also used TNT for illegal purposes. It was despicable of you to hurt Chuck that way, and not in self-defense, but out of malevolent intention." The blues pretended to know that word: now was not the time for childish curiosity. Red continued on. "You all should know better. I may be blunt in saying this, but it is time for you to grow up, take responsibility, have a mind of your own. You are at the point in your life where your immaturity is not funny. It can be dangerous, and can hurt someone you know.
"But I am not mad at you; I am mad at your immaturity, your wrongdoings. I know you can change, and Chuck's uncontrollable anger also played a part in his injury. You will return to class tomorrow, and I will teach you. You may go to your room now." The blues silently filed out of the cave, and vanished into the dark of the night. Chuck's face flickered in the lonely firelight, Red's back towards him.
"Now Chuck, I am sentencing you to banishment from the flock for one week. During that week, you will procure the supplies necessary to produce the TNT that has been lost."
There was a brief silence. Red softly turned to the guilty party, his despondent yellow face and all.
"Don't give that look, Chuck. Sometimes your anger can get the better of you." Red's speech flipped to a less authoritative tone. "There is a fine line between determination and anger. Make no mistake; we have all stuck our beaks past that line one time or another. I may be your peer in age, but I have entrusted to manage the Flock, and I must fulfill my duties."
"Don't leave me out in the cold, Red. These grasslands are unforgiving. Give me a chance."
"But have I not given you chances already? Numerous times this year, you have stepped out of line. I warned you not to let your anger harm the ones you care for. We are a team, and it is not your independent strength, but the strength of us together that makes us a powerful Flock."
"Terrence has gotten to your head, Red. What about those two times, when you confronted Bomb?"
"It's none of your business."
"You're jealous of Bomb because he's the most powerful one. The Blues admire him, but think of you as a miserable control freak. You have no special powers in the battlefield, while he always steals the show with his bomb fuse…"
"Get out, Chuck."
"…and that's why you gave him a piece of your mind. You took him to…"
"I said get out!"Red's fury echoed in the walls of the cave. "Like, get out of the Flock. You're banished, like I said. I shouldn't even be talking to you." He hushed his voice this time, so as not to wake the others.
Chuck left the cave. After a while, Terrence, who listened to the conversation the whole time, inched toward Red.
"Do you think I did the right thing?" Red asked. Terrence was always the wise one of the group.
"Your strictness will not lead you to happiness, Red."
"But isn't that what you want? Control?"
"No, you're forgetting the mission of the Flock. Our goal is to protect the eggs in our nest. That is what I have strived for. But ah, this body is too tired and too tormented to fulfill this duty."
"Will I turn out the way you are, Terrence? Old, frozen, unable to function from trauma?"
"Alas, no."
"What do you mean, 'Alas, no'? Is it not a bad thing?"
Terrence sighed. "You see Red, the reason why I became this way was I had no coping mechanism for this stressful life of firing yourself into a fortress, sacrificing your skin for the skin of your future children, growing inside the eggs.
"It is like being a soldier, fighting in the line of fire. It is not natural. When we are first born, we treasure all life. Our love knows no hierarchy. Our love does not stratify things. But as we get older, the need for power, supremacy, the need to justify yourself, to bestow honor upon yourself and your comrades, becomes more important than simply accepting and loving life.
"In the midst of battle, your determination to kill fills your mind. But after the battle, you must cope with the fact you have taken away a life, even if it was to save the life of another. You see Red, I had no coping mechanism. In order to be able to kill and be of sound mind, I had to go against the grain of my innate nature to treasure all life. Like the friction of coarse sandpaper to unprepared skin, this created the irrevocable scars that I wear today. I chose to kill, sacrificing my sanity.
"You built a coping mechanism so your natural instincts were blocked, and the manifestation of that is that you are a control freak. But merely coping only suppresses how nature wants you to behave. And so even if the sandpaper does not cut the toughened skin, it eventually does, backlashing on you in the form of anger, hate, and stress.
"When you are young, the strength to kill is weak. This is why the blues have a harder time coping with injury and stress. When I got older, I, who hadn't tried to cope with the stress, had it all come at me slowly and painfully in the form of trauma. But through this trauma, I finally was able to realize what I am telling you now."
"So are you telling me this because you want me to 'realize' this sooner?" Red asked.
"No, Red. It has to come to you. Eventually your coping mechanism will no longer be able to tolerate all the stress you subject upon it and it progresses from stress into trauma. Once you have killed, you must go through this process before you can be at least at peace with yourself again.
"But if I had a second chance, I wouldn't place my cards on it. The flow of my life is a part of me that I have learned to understand and love, and the misfortune I faced has awarded me wisdom which I speak from today."
Red took some time to process all these words. "Is this a warning of my fate?"
"No, just a friendly word of advice. Good night, Red."
"Good night, Terrence." Red left the cave, and everyone was asleep.