Lost in his thoughts and jumpy as always, Granville starts at the voice and glances up from where he’s slouched at the foot of a wall. He is indeed dripping, and the smattering of freckles under his fringe suggests why. There’s also blood mingling with the water running down his knuckles, but apparently putting one boy in the infirmary wasn’t enough to stop the same gang from trying it on someone who hadn’t fought back as hard.
Up until now, he’s been grateful for the foreign transfer. He’s long been the favoured victim of the older boys for a plethora of reasons: his red hair, his common family, his Northern accent, his permanently striped left hand from the sting of the switches when he doesn’t transfer his quill to his right quick enough, and most recently, his tendency to let his eyes linger a little too long on other boys while bathing. But he’s also one of the tallest in his year, with a sharper left hook than his slight build would suggest. His tormentors rejoiced at the arrival of an easier target. So did he. But the kid looks so pitiful now, soaked and struggling to communicate, that Granville wishes he’d at least been replaced by someone who could defend himself somewhat.
He’s studied enough Latin (not to mention the Italian poetry he’s taken to hiding from his dormmates’ scorn) to get the gist of what’s being said to him. Still, he’s surprised to be addressed in Italian of all things, and doesn’t collect his thoughts enough to reply before the other boy translates.
“I’d say that’s pretty obvious, don’t you think?” He tries for a smile and ends up with a sort of grimace. He’s been trying not to cry for a good twenty minutes now, and speaking breaks his concentration. He has to pause to take a subtle deep breath before adding, “Same trick twice in a row. Bloody uncreative, if you ask me.”
Compared to the solidity of the well bred English boys, the wispy build of the red haired youth reminds him of the fae folk. Of course, that initial moment is ruined by the absolutely awful face he pulls. Still, though, he’s able to understand most of what’s said to him, though the accent is rather different than what the other boys gave voice to. Probably another reason to bully people.
His own lip twists unhappily as the thought occurs to him that he’s been ripped away from everything good just to be placed into a den of people that were going to grow up to be exactly the type of men that his father was. He lets the thought pass with a sigh, going to sit next to the other boy, folding himself down to practically nothing.
“S...... Yes. Monsters tend to have singular ideas at a time. Devono farne uso, Dio non voglia che abbiano un'altra idea.”
The next one is probably just going to be an escalation of the first, and it’s why he doesn’t pretend to understand English around them, though he was learning it as fast as anything. They liked to talk to him as if he didn’t understand, mocking him and chatting among themselves about what they were going to do. As long as it’s just water in the bucket, he can bear it. If they ever become bright enough to use something else, then he was gong to use his tiny agile body to it’s fullest.
“Did they hurt you? You’re leaking.” He takes one of the other boy’s hands, mimicking his voice for a second. “Bloody...”
His skin is hurting as well, but he grew up in a coastal Italian city, if his skin was going to crack open just because of a little abuse, then what were his daily swims in the ocean all for? Well... That is, besides the freckles he’s now being tormented with.
