“I need you to be still and quiet,” Derg hisses from beyond camouflaged pert buttocks. His prostrate, well-kept 50s form is engulfed by the moor as if subsiding into thick custard. Merrill, frazzled 30s, spread-eagles on voluptuous heather like a quilted starfish, well out of her urban water, sullenly gazing up at grey nothing.
“I’m peacefully protesting being an accomplice to murd—“
An oilskin sails over her face and, like a pet bird, as the lights go out so does her urge to speak.
Derg strides over, through tussocks and efflorescences of heather. Merrill trudges, lags. She contorts her face around several unacceptable conflicts.
“Like how you can set your sights on a living face and pull the trigger?”
“Dinner.”
“Rubbish. And all this land management business, burning regime, etc. bollocks: naturally this wouldn’t happen every year. That’s totally distorting the ecosystem—“
Derg expels an audible lungful into still air.
“—to suit a bunch of sadistic boys!”
“Healthy outlet for aggression. Deer need culled—“
“People need culled,” Merrill interjects.
“—Unless you’re reintroducing bears.”
“Why can’t we enjoy this beauty without having to fiddle—“
“Beauty doesn’t keep you warm at night.” Derg approaches the thin end of his patience.
Merrill halts, wheezing. Derg eases off, tilting his head back in frustration.
“Antlers do?!” She splutters.
“The Land—“
“What possible justification could that tweed-encrusted sponge cake have for—“
“HA HA HA!”
A shockwave of hearty laughter blasts Merrill forward to a thirty degree tilt. Derg pivots elegantly and flaps a resigned introduction for the benefit of the gigantic source of mirth.
“Merrill.”
The amused ogre nods his mane and shakes much of Merrill’s padded, stick-like forearm with his agricultural paw, displaying domesticated decorum. Merrill teeters on the precipice of wasp-infested stroppiness.
“And you are?”
Derg faintly recoils, compresses his lips and raises his eyebrows for the punch line.
“The Tweed-encrusted Sponge Cake,” he introduces himself affably.
Merrill flails into argumentativeness, seizing upon Cake’s perfect proportions, “Derg said you were fat!?”
“Large, I said,” Derg mutters, embarking gently upon fishermen’s gestures in all three dimensions.
“Why are you here?” Cake wonders aloud, twiddling a tuft of beard. Merrill smirks groundward at the reciprocal snip.
“Derg felt I was too agitated to be left unattended – his rage and despair being all nicely transmuted by the killing.”
“Right…” Cake investigates a suspect idea from several angles. “I might need something from you.”
“What?” Merrill’s dubiety now matches her belligerence.
“Let’s start with your presence.” Cake engages a low gear and forges effortlessly away, smirking at his cryptic mastery.
Derg waits for the next gust which gratifyingly tips Merrill the rest of the way to horizontal. While she flails, he glances to the horizon. The sky silently coruscates into ominous orange and purple. He squints, understates.
“Some fireworks.”