Where did all the hours go?!

Today was a tiring day... but all in all, a rather good one too!
My day was made of:

1. chatting (which is always a lot of fun with my friend Rachel! ^_^ But now, she's discovered I've got 'mojo' apparently and she said I'm in trouble... Eep.); 
2. having my weird, yelly neighbor knock at my door early in the morning while I'm still in my PJs and ask if she can borrow toilet paper (.........whatever); 
3. calling and leaving messages and receiving phonecalls about our broken oven that needs some fixing (I *hate* to talk on the phone! So four phonecalls for ONE problem is more than enough for me, thank you!); 
4. writing some difficult scenes (a lot of emotions today: another sexy scene, an answer/scolding scene, one 'Am I normal?' teenager scene and one sobfest, please!);
5. being informed that a friend/coworker of my boyfriend bought us tickets to The Hobbit as a Christmas present totally out of the blue (the gesture touched me a lot! Yeah, I know, I'm emotional like that...); 
6. fighting with a jerkface of a cat that refused to adhere to his evening schedule routine (which includes brushing him and all that taking-care-of-him jazz); 
7. ordering Mexican food that took forever to get here (seriously! one and a half hour on a Tuesday night!! What do they do on Saturdays?! Needless to say the food was cold); 
8. and almost getting into a fight with my boyfriend whom not getting our food drove into a really grumpy mood (well, both him and I but all is fine now).

(And for the past twenty minutes, my stomach has been complaining about those 'Camarones a la diabla'.......! Oy...)

So, phew! I'm exhausted and will simply crawl into bed and pass out soon :P
But before that happens, I have promised you guys the second half of that fight scene I wrote yesterday and I *will* deliver! :D But first, some numbers: I wrote 3 324 words today (I seem to have an average of 3k words a day!) which brings me to a grand total of... 63 970 words!! :) I can see the 65k milestone approaching and I have every intent on crossing that barrier tomorrow but, as Rachel and I have learned: no plan makes for a good plan! Cause, you know... sometimes, life happens! So we'll see! ^_^

Until then, here's that excerpt! Hope you guys will like it! ^_^  'Night!

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(So, you remember where we left? Ulie was trying out weapons to find out which one would suit her best... She's been 'defeated' -- and feeling slightly humiliated -- by Quinton. Ok, I will back up a bit in the text just so guys aren't dropped off in the middle of an ongoing scene...... Well, that's the official reason for it. The unofficial one is that Xeres is fun to 'look' at! ^_^ *straightens her back and tries to look serious* Yeah, well... *clears throat* Happy reading!!)

“Maybe a smaller weapon, like Kaylia’s short saber or Reizu's dagger…” started Hane.

“Or maybe she’s not a weapon-wielder at all,” suggest the town crier’s voice from behind Ulie. “Maybe she’s a fist fighter. Like Eva!”

Ulie slowly turned around. Xeres jumped down the table and adopted a combat stance a few feet away from her.

“Let’s try that, shall we?”

Ulie suddenly got torn between crying and throwing up her breakfast’s content. How was she supposed to… touch him?!

For the first time ever, seeing as he was kind of drawing all her attention to himself while being shirtless, Ulie allowed herself to really detail him. He had black, wavy, damp hair falling in front of his dark blue eyes, a straight nose with a wide tip standing between high cheeks and just above a mouth made of a sharply-shaped upper lip and a thick bottom one that, for some reason, Ulie suddenly thought would be fun to bite… A strong neck and a stone-chiseled upper body supported that handsome head. Muscles could be seen bulging under his skin at the pectoral, abdominal and upper arms regions.

And his pants held way too low on his hips…   

The simple idea of fighting Xeres… The simple idea of him hitting her back… The simple idea of his half-naked body pressed against hers…

She could not do it!

Feeling her cheeks blushing violently, Ulie forced her thoughts onto something else, anything else!

“Hey, we got some other things to do sometime today so you’re attacking me or not?” he taunted her.

But she could not bring herself to it.

“Look, if you don’t attack me, I will attack you so… your choice!” he warned.

Everyone was watching her reaction. If she did not want to make her attraction for Xeres too obvious for all of them, she should probably react right about now.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Ulie adopted a combat stance copied on Xeres’s. I cannot believe I’m doing this, she thought, on the verge of crying in panic. He was going to enter her personal space again…

But then, something happened.

Was it sympathy? Kindness from the Universe whispered to her ear? Or a very perceptive eye? Whatever it was, something moved Eva to come to Ulie’s rescue.

“You know, you’re very intimidating like that, showing off your muscles” she scolded Xeres while sliding down the table. “Plus, it is a known fact that men are generally stronger than women – physically anyway. You could really badly hurt an inexperienced girl like her! It’s best if you let me do it.”

She took a few more steps and stood between Xeres and Ulie.

“Pfff, whatever,” scoffed the town crier before heading back to the table.

Facing the teenager, Eva adopted the same combat stance as Xeres with a smile. Was it a friendly, empathic smile… or a mean, victorious one? Ulie could not decide.

“Come on,” she said. “Attack me!”

“What…?” asked Ulie who could not believe what she was hearing. Was Eva really inviting the teenager to kick her ass?! OK, that would probably never happen since the thief was a far more advanced fighter but still, it would be nice to vent some of that hate Ulie had for the woman!

“Come on!” insisted Eva. “Hit me!”

This time, Ulie was the only one smirking. “With pleasure,” she responded for herself.

And balling up her fists, condensing all her rage, her feelings of uselessness, her jealousy and hatred for the thief, Ulie ran toward her enemy.

She did not even need to scream as she was doing so; Eva still noticed the anger in her opponent. She quickly changed her stance to something sturdier that could withstand the oncoming blow.

And Ulie hit her, head on.

Unleashing all her bottled up feelings, Ulie attacked Eva with a strength she did not even know herself capable of. Fists, elbows, knees, feet… even her teeth were looking for a way to harm the gorgeous, sexy, intelligent, skilled, useful thief! Everybody froze at such a display of pure hatred! Quinton and Xeres were the first to react, stepping closer to separate the girls but Eva stopped them.

“Don’t!” she yelled from under Ulie’s attack. “Stay back! Let her be!”

The men exchanged a look but obeyed in the end and walked back to the picnic table where the rest of the gang was staring at a surreal scene: Ulie that had always seemed so sweet and vulnerable was actually sheltering an unbelievable amount of rage!

            Noticing that the surroundings were clear so she would not hurt anybody else, Eva finally counterattacked. In two very precise, quick and sharp moves, Eva used the palm of her hands to hit Ulie in the belly, forcing her to bend forward, and then on the top of her right shoulder, making her fall flat on her ass but inflicting no real damage whatsoever.

            Feeling humiliated some more, Ulie stood up and charged again. Eva sidestepped and playfully slapped Ulie’s butt as she went passing by, dragged forward by her dash. As everyone openly giggled, Ulie had never felt so ready to burst with anger in her life. Tears of rage blurred her vision.

            “I don’t know why you’re so mad at me,” claimed Eva, “but as long as you’ll attack out of anger like that, I will best you. Focus! Use that fire to see clearly, to sharpen your senses and to concentrate your strength!”

            Ulie had half a mind not to listen to that bitch but in the end, the perspective of maybe defeating her – or at least succeeding in hurting her – became stronger.

She paused.

            It was not a particularly long pause, more like the one that preceded the Cinder’s fight in the City’s street the day before. And just like back then, Ulie felt something snap inside of her. For that mere second, the world stopped existing. There was no picnic table. No Sython’s team, no Hane, no Krek, no Quinton, no Xeres… There was no pain, no death possible.

            There was no uncontrollable anger anymore.

            Ulie’s heart slowed down. Her cheeks cooled off and all of her muscles unclenched. A peaceful resolve rose along with an incredible amount of strength; the teenager could feel it pulse in her veins.

            She blinked. Once.

            That’s all she did in that moment. And when she reopened her eyes, the tears were gone. Ulie could see Eva clearly in front of her and she could calculate at an incredible speed the best possible way to inflict maximum damage according to the position the thief was standing in.

            She charged.

            To her, it seemed like she was running in slow motion and that they would all see her coming, but awkwardly, no one else was moving. It was like they were frozen. That was the momentum she had been waiting for!

And as if it was the most natural thing for her body to do, Ulie jumped in the air, drew her right leg back against her chest, then let it spring out the way she saw Eva do it with her punch, like a cramp letting go. And she managed to stamp her right heel on Eva’s left cheek.

Still at super slow speed, Ulie saw the thief’s head fly to the side, dragging the rest of the her body after it while Ulie was pulled back down by gravity and landed on her feet in total control of her balance!

Ulie was standing.

Eva was on the ground…

The surroundings grew eerily quiet. No one dared react, not even the teenager! Handersen’s words were what shook everybody out of their lethargy. He spoke pretty much everyone’s mind, exclaiming: “What the hell just happened?!”

Half of the group hurried to Eva’s side while the other half stared at Ulie with disbelief, aversion and a hint of fear painted on their faces. The teenager suddenly realized what she had done and starting feeling really bad until a laughter rose from the group crouching a few feet away from her.

They all stood up and Ulie saw that it was Eva laughing heartily.

“Now that was a hell of a kick!” she complimented the teenager while rubbing her sore cheek. “She’s indeed a fist fighter,” she informed the group. “And a damn good one too!” she winked at Ulie.