To be or not to be... social?

I had another slow day today.

Since I had to announce the end of one of my series on Facebook, I got a lot of disappointed teenager girls to deal with. I spent most of my day talking to people, actually. Which is totally awesome but doesn't help the word count! haha Well, at least, my social bar is full! :P

Anyway, I'm feeling really tired lately. (If I had listened to myself, I would have gone back to bed for another 8 hours! I'm really exhausted...) So I've got trouble making sentences, I've got trouble typing actual words and not just random letters in the wrong order but worst of all, I cannot connect with my characters anymore!! They've shunned me out! (I think they're still pouting because I took a three-day break from them last weekend...)

So, the plan is : tomorrow is my crazy Saturday routine so I won't write. I'll focus on grocery, on spending time with the boyfriend, playing games, watching TV, folding laundry and doing nothing! Sunday, I will sleep in as long as my body will need it but I DO plan on writing during the day. (I've found out that, the longer I take a break from writing, the longer it takes for my brain to get back into it! So, one day break is my limit from now on until the end of time!!)

As for the actual numbers today, I didn't even reach the thousand words threshold... I made it to 926 words, bringing me to a total of 56 387 words. As for an excerpt... I've got only one scene in it and it contains a nice spoilers without which the scene doesn't make much sense... So I've gone back in the text and found a little chunk of story that could prove interesting (Rachel: I'm sorry if you've already read it... I cannot keep track anymore of what you know and what you don't! LOL) I hope it'll still make sense...

And totally unrelated to anything, just for the fun of it because my cat is a freaking adorable weirdo, here's Maples's latest weird sleeping position! ^_^

Happy reading! ^_^

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     They reached the tavern a few minutes later and Ulie had a shock seeing the state of the place. The tavern had clearly known better days. Empty bottles and filled-to-the-brim drunks covered the steps that led to it while the sign above the door had been disfigured with what looked like blood. Loud noises were heard inside as if a fight was going on. Hane’s pain seemed to fade away in an instant and some kind of maternal instinct took over. She pushed Ulie in the shadows on the side of the outdoor stairs. “Stay here with Krek,” she whispered. “You’re still supposed to be kidnapped and I don’t like the looks of things up there. Quint and I will get your mom. Don’t move!”

     Ulie wanted to protest but the look Hane gave her convinced her to obey. Yet, once again, she found herself missing the action and feeling useless.

     Hane and Quinton climbed the stairs of the tavern while Krek came to stand by Ulie’s side. “You know, Hane’s a real good person,” he said, not even taking the precaution of whispering for the noises inside the tavern almost entirely covered the sound of his voice. “She has always taken care of me and the other hybrids. It’s a shame Nam never came back…”

     He shook his head and stared at the ground, obviously sad for his sister’s fate. Ulie grieved for her too but she was more curious as to what was going on inside.

     She turned around and tried to peek into the first floor’s windows but they were just a tad out of reach. And nothing at ground level could be used as a step.

     “Krek, can you lift me a bit?”

     “What?! Why?”

     “I wanna see inside.”

     “Why?”

     “This is my home! I want to know what the hell is going on! And since I respect Hane, I will try to stay hidden but if you don’t help me, I will run up those stairs and have a look for myself.”

     Krek sighed. “Fine, fine. No need for threat.”

     Squatting against the wall, Krek gave Ulie a leg up. She was careful not to let her head show too much in the window but then again, no one was looking at her!

The place had lost all of its former friendly charm. Now, it looked exactly like the idea Ulie had of a thieves’ hideout! Drinking games, knife games, throwing-bottles-at-Molly-the-barkeeper games… and in a not-dark-enough-for-her-taste corner, Ulie even spotted what looked like an orgy!

     “Ok, put me down, Krek. Put me down!”

     He obeyed.

     “Interesting?” he asked.

     “No, not at all… Mom and Aunt Molly have clearly lost control of things!” she replied. “I don’t even wanna imagine what is happening in my room in the attic,” she added, her stomach turning.

     Three silhouettes rushed down the stairs and appeared in front of them.

     “Ulie?” asked Holly Braser.

     At the simple sound of her mother’s voice, Ulie forgot everything: her age, her thoughts, her fears, her dreams, the people around her, the handsome men she had met, the monsters she had seen... She just ran into her mother’s opened arms.

     “Oh! My pup, I’m so glad you’re okay!”

     “Mom, you hired these people to protect me so they do! Why would you even worry about me? Has the hooded man come back?!”

     The question was justified and fitting the context so nobody thought it weird but for the past hour, Ulie had been secretly dying to hear her mom say that the man had indeed come back and that she had to stay with Hane, Krek, Quinton… and Xeres.

     Unfortunately, that was not the case.

    “No, I have not heard from him ever since. But I knew you were hiding at the [DRUG JOINT NAME] and well, with what happened there yesterday…”

     “What?! What happened?” butted in Hane.

     They had just passed in front of the place and nothing seemed unusual. The front door was lit and candles were glowing inside the joint through the pulled-down shades.

     “Oh dear, you don’t know…” understood Holly, a painful expression on her face. “The beast struck again. In there…”

       Hane thudded her back against the wall.

      “Any casualties?” she asked in a state of shock, clearly thinking about the two bartenders, the other hybrids.

     Holly hesitated for a second but if she was not the one to reveal it, they would learn it some other way anyway.

       “Eleven,” she finally answered. “The new crier said no one made it out alive…”

       Hane slid against the wall and sat on the ground, stunned.

       “I’m sorry,” sympathized Holly.

      “The beast has never attacked inside a building before,” whispered Hane. “And it never killed anyone that was not a soldier.”

        “It really did feel like a vendetta, in my honest opinion,” agreed Holly.

      A bottle was thrown from the door above them and landed in the street in a loud crashing sound, bringing everyone back to the present.

     “Mom, what the hell happened here?!”

     “Language!” scolded Holly. “Look, it’s a long story, alright. I just… I don’t think things will clear until the curfew is lifted.” She put a tote-bag in Ulie’s hands. “Here are most of your things,” she said. “You cannot come back here until then.”

     “But mom!”

     Ulie opposed for good measure but deep down, a small satisfaction rose: Holly was forcing the gang to keep her daughter with them a little longer. Ulie would have to go with them on the quest!

      “Wait, we had a deal,” chimed in Krek. “We were to protect her from the hooded man and since he did not come back… Besides, we think that hooded man might have been one of our acquaintances who happens to be dead!”

       “What? Really?” asked Holly.

     Quinton dragged a glance at Krek, ordering him to shut up, and he took control of the conversation with a bit more tact.

       “There is a possibility, yes. Could you describe the hooded man to us? Do you remember any details? Any details at all that could help us identify him? For instance, did he have a limp?”

        Old man Albhan had a limp, according to Quinton…

       Holly paused, clutching to a shawl that had hastily been thrown over her shoulders. Her gaze wandered in her memories. After a minute or two, she finally answered.

        “No, I don’t remember he had a limp,” she said.

        “Did he have a pet bird? A falcon or something?”

      Hane, Krek and Ulie stared at Quinton: what exactly was he getting at? Kigast, really?! Here?!

         “No,” replied Holly as if the question was normal.

         “Any… features? Something out of the ordinary?”

        “Hmm, I did not see him much. He was wearing a cape with a hood and a scarf that hid his face well… But I do remember thinking he had an unusually deep voice. Oh! And even though he was being very careful of the light, once, he got too close to one of our candles and I saw he had mismatched eyes. One green and one blue.”

        Ulie startled and raised her head at Quinton who returned her gaze: he knew as well. The deep voice, the mismatched eyes… Only one man could fit that description: Reizu!

      “Look, I really gotta go back inside. I cannot leave Molly alone in there for too long. Here!”

        She handed a large chunk of money to Quinton. Ulie opened wide eyes at the sight of the sum.

        “Mom…!”

    “Business is great now,” she explained hastily. Then she turned to Quinton. “Your assignment is prolonged: protect my daughter. Keep her away from here. From now on, she’s not allowed to approach the place at all! I will leave a message for you at the mansion when I’m ready to take her back home.”

       She hugged Ulie quickly. “Be good, pup,” she murmured in her ear. And then, she turned to hurry towards the stairs but Ulie stopped her before she could reach it.

       “Mom!” she called.

        Holly paused and turned around to face her daughter.

       “Mom… Is it true? Are you…”

        …a whore? Ulie stopped herself before she could finish that question.

Xeres words had stuck with her ever since that weird encounter with her mom the second night of her “kidnapping”. He had claimed that Ulie’s mother was one of those women who sell their bodies to whomever could afford to pay for them. (And not in the greatest interest of science…!) But how does one even ask such a question to the woman who gave birth to them and raised them? And what good could come out of it anyway?

       “’Am I’ what, pup?”

       Ulie sighed. Nope, no good could come out of it.

        “Are you… alright?” she finally asked.

    A shadow passed on Holly’s face; she had understood what was laying under her daughter’s question. Her expression was torn between sorrow and relief when she replied: “Yes, pup. I am.”

        Ulie nodded: the question needed not be asked, still it got answered.

        Holly walked up the stairs.

        And that was the last time Ulie Braser saw her mother.

(Note: As an added bonus, I'm putting up a drawing I did of Reizu. He may look like Xeres a bit but they're different especially in the hair color : Xeres has black hair whereas Reizu has blond. I was supposed to change his expression as well, but the more I looked at him and the more he felt... right. That's the Reizu in my book, my sixteen year-old assassin that looks like a cherub, has a surprisingly deep voice and mismatched eyes! ^_^)