Goddess by Liv Savell (books for 6 year olds to read themselves txt) 📗

down his unfinished drink. “Horrible things can be committed in the name of cleverness and stupid ones in the name of bravery. Better to have both, I think. Or, if you have to have just one, then better to be dumb and brave. The brave idiot can do less damage than the clever coward.”

The mage raised a hand to run through his hair only to stiffen with his arm still in the air. He hadn’t meant to insinuate that Meirin was either of those things. Or that it applied to this situation.“In general, I mean,” he stammered. “As like a— a thought experiment.”

“Of course. A thought experiment. Do you experiment on your thoughts often, Etienne?” She grinned, the warpaint already applied to her lower lip, pulling her smile into something fiendish. Her temper seemed gone now, replaced with her usual rhathymia.

The fire crackled beside them, and the clearing was quiet. Delyth gone.

Etienne moved to pack his own tent if only to give himself the air of surety that Meirin nearly always left him lacking. He didn’t understand her question—it had the ring of something nonsensical. Was she teasing him?

He shrugged, feigning a casual attitude. “Don’t you?”

Shoving her dark hair over her shoulder, Meirin’s grin only widened. “I mostly experiment on others' thoughts. It’s more entertaining.” Coming forward, she moved to the opposite side of his tent and started to take down the canvas covering the poles.

Her hands moved smoothly, confident in the task and her dark eyes strayed to his face often. Each time Etienne looked up, and Meirin caught him looking her way, she would chuckle. “Shall we spar while we wait for Delyth to return?”

Experiment with other’s thoughts, indeed. For all his cleverness, Etienne felt as though he was always a step behind the warrior, and now that she had moved closer, he found it even more difficult to concentrate. His fingers slipped once, twice on the rough canvas, Meirin’s laughter echoing in his ears.

It seemed to take him an age to process her question, and even when he did, he looked up with his face twisted in confusion. “But you lost your spear…”

“Your hand to hand is terrible. You could stand to practice.” She shrugged as if she hadn’t just insulted the mage and nodded her chin towards the clearing across from the fire. “Call it an experiment, eh?”

Etienne closed his now-full pack and wiped his palms against the rough cloth of his trousers. Hand to hand sparring sounded too close. Meirin was confusing enough at a spear’s length.

But neither did he feel like he should refuse. She was right. His fighting abilities were paltry at best, and he would need them before this whole mess was over.

“An experiment, right,” Etienne said nervously and trotted over towards the open space Meirin had indicated. He held himself tensely, unsure of how to begin. Should he just try to hit her? Would she let him know when to start?

“Let’s say—” She stood in front of Etienne, knees slightly bent, arms held loosely at her side, ready to spring out and block or smack. “Best two out of three? Whoever knocks the other over gets the point?” Simple enough to remember, if not to do.

There was little doubt in Etienne’s mind who would take that point, but he nodded anyway, stubbornly trying to appear confident. She made it seem so easy, her air of down-to-earth competence. “Alright. When do we start?”

Her little smile was all the answer he got before Meirin was launching herself across the distance between them, palm landing against his chest and balling in the front of his tunic before her free hand grabbed his shoulder.

Perhaps if she had been slower or said “and go” Etienne might have warded her off, but as it was, Meirin was tossing the mage across her hip and towards the ground forcefully in a matter of seconds.

Meirin fought much the same as Delyth in form and yet very differently in attitude. Where Delyth entered battle with a frightening abandonment, Meirin danced around, feinting or tricking. She was, of course, smaller than Delyth but also a less straightforward person. Wily.

She stood over Etienne, who lay in the dirt on his back, and drew an invisible one in the air. One point for Meirin, zero points for Etienne.  She never seemed to go easy on him.“Come on, mage. Toss me around a bit. It’ll be fun.”

Air was suddenly a commodity, and Etienne took a gasping moment to gather enough of it to fill his lungs, glaring up at Meirin. He was not certain how he’d ended up on the ground so quickly, the clan woman's compact form moving faster than he could react.

When he caught his breath, he glared at her and climbed back to his feet, brushing himself off. “Maybe if you’d teach me how I could.” After all, their sparring so far had concentrated more on fighting with weapons.

“Grab me. Throw me.” Simple enough. But then, because Meirin wasn’t always the contrary creature she pretended to be, she gestured slowly, demonstrating. She stepped closer and planted her left arm on his chest, balling her hand into a fist with his tunic in her clutches. With that done, she reached for his left shoulder with her right hand. Grabbing the meaty portion she twisted to her left, hauling him incrementally forward.

The further she turned to the left, the more Etienne was off-balance until he was hunched over and teetering to stay on his feet while she kept propelling him down over her hip. Had this been faster and with more force, he surely would have been tossed just as easily as the first time.

Instead of letting him fall, Meirin turned back around and released Etienne’s shoulder and tunic.

“Of course, if you were bulkieror had a good stance, I might not be able to get you so easily. I doubt I could use this move on Delyth, the mountain.” Meirin smiled, her tone teasing but not mean.“Here. Try it on me.”

Only a little