#dun.

bullied him ???   of course not!  even a younger grendel would never!  grendel is the prime example of a bullying victim!  grendel has never bullied someone in his life!  beowulf-era grendel especially would  NEVER  be So Hypocritical as to  push the shrimpy little softjawed shit facefirst into a bowl of mead and laugh about it when the sting in his eyes makes him scream  --

Apples are hard. But Unferth’s head turns out to be harder. When it hits, it bursts, and the three tailing him pause mid-conversation - yup, Unferth hadn’t even thought about his surroundings. He picked up an apple from the dumb fruit bowl and impulse ruled.

He almost topples back, but his hand hits the pool table, and he keeps upright.

(Behind him, Minerva, Goon and Dun all but bolt out of range of these two.)

Unferth can’t laugh. It’s stuck in his chest.

So what comes out is more of a volatile, humerous bark.

There’s no apples left, so he takes the damn orange instead and aims for the throat. It’s excessive but there’s fucking apple in his hair.

…. ….

“If it was strawberry, ya coulda said Unferth was ‘strawberry blond’.” Dun is muttering jubilantly to Goon and Minerva, who look unnerved.

grendel’s mouth is agape, because it always is.  agape since the day he was born  --  around Men, at least;  men and their meat and their silly games.  nothing of human nature has changed.  he realizes this the longer he lives.  nothing’s changed and nothing will ever change.  it’s wonderful.  it’s horrible.  he feels like baby grendel, vitriolic and sordid, revenge sought in the shell of a fucking  fruit.

except he doesn’t catch the orange.  it lodges itself right into his open maw and gets stuck, showing visibly in the pouch of his throat.

his eyes bug out.  his cheeks go purple.  beats himself in the belly, and then the chest, panic-inhaling through the pathetic slit he calls a nose.  stares at unferth the entire time  --  desperate, at first, and then angry;  and then, when the thing finally goes  shooting  out of his mouth and rolling across the ground, covered in slime, he’s laughing again.  unferth can’t, but grendel has to laugh.  holds his stomach, kicks his stupid feet, lays on his back, pink in the face.

dun is there.  so is the girl.  so is the tall one.  holly, too, rolling her eyes like she’s grown sick of him     ( she hasn’t, yet ).     but grendel looks right at unferth, like he’s the only person in the room, and promptly extends his middle finger  --  or, rather, the index finger of a three-toed hand.

   “ you ain’t no strawberry blond,  aye-op. ”

snickering.  licking his teeth.  god forbid anybody say it, but when grendel’s having fun, he’s kind of  sweet.

      “ you’re a fuckin’  Mott’s Fruit Medley. ”