[Training] Beautiful flaws

"Well, I'm glad you don't believe her." And he really was. One of Sam's longest standing fears had been that Evie would poison the world against him, or his parents; systemically go through each happiness, every friend, make sure he could not access them. He had meant what he'd said about the pattern, but Sam's approach had always been slow, gentle, careful; Maea slashing at the leather with seeming gay abandon made him raise his eyebrows with a cringe. Upside down and not looking for it, he did not see the mask, just a potential mess and a lot of stitch work that would be needed to fix it. Still...he was too awkward to complain to her about it. Sam smiled and looked down at her kind words, scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. He didn't know how to respond to his sort of thing, not really. "...Thank you. Um, so...now we just need to leave the glue to try. Put something heavy on top. I put some sacks there, next to you. They should be heavy." The sacks were filled with rocks, would weigh the books down. Sam bent down to pick up a metal cube to weigh down his book, something that didn't look big enough to do the job but as soon as he placed it on the cover, sank down the pages to a more compact shape. "Are you excited? For the reading lessons?" Samuel How should we like it were stars to burn With a passion for us we could not return? If equal affection cannot be, Let the more loving one be me.