BUILD

LEON CRESSWELL “𝐼 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑚𝑦 ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑡 𝑎 𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒” ( mobile navigation )

[leon-cresswell]

joaquin​:

♟  

Joaquin was hungry, and he fully intended to head to the farm to get some food for supper, take it up to Aurélie’s home for repast together.   Or perhaps, Aurélie had a meal ready of her own, even though she was still recovering and Joaquin would highly disapprove.  He couldn’t exactly prevent Aurélie from doing whatever she wanted.  Everyone knew this; at least Joaquin assumed everyone knew this.

And besides, Joaquin was distracted by a very delicious scent.

Greedy and curious, the old monk followed his nose, sniffing at the air like a hound until he reached a fire and the originator of that heady, mouth-watering scent.  A beautiful mahi-mahi, roasting in the flames.  

“Lucas?” Joaquin asked, thinking at first it was the grumpy young man; Joaquin would’ve been surprised if it was, considering there were others around, socializing quietly with their own share of fish.

Coming around the fire, Joaquin noticed who was parceling out the meals.  Another young man, but Joaquin didn’t know him either.  

“Bonjour,” Joaquin greeted with a smile.  “Ah! May I have some fish?”

Leon finished chewing his bite before he wiped his mouth with the back of his palm. He wasn’t being a savage as he ate, but one could scarcely eat too decently on an island that was very lacking in cutlery. And it was hard not to eat the fish too contently when it frankly tasted very good.

There was still a large portion of fish by the fire and Leon eagerly gestured towards it. «Please, help yourself,» the young man signed and mouthed along his words for better understanding of his new companion. «There’s plenty to share». It was probably an obvious statement, considering the size of his catch. But well, it for the other man it probably wasn’t a given that he would choose to share it, which was why Leon wanted to clarify he wasn’t planning on eating it all on his own.

[leon-cresswell]

Do you have a type? And/or what do you look for in a friend?

Leon’s eyebrows knit together, evidencing a moment of thinking, questioning himself the answer to that question. Did he even have a type? In the outside world, the life before all of this, his friends had been few and far between, but close in trust as siblings. The ‘ride or die’ kind, as some said. A quite a variety they were too when it came to character. Vinny, his brother from another mother, bold and raucous, comical yet hardworking and tenacious and dedicated to his family like no one else he knew. There was Matt from secondary school, the classical type-A overachiever, but also impossibly attentive and caring, so much so that he’d opened his home in New York City to Leon despite not having seen each other in ages. There was Juliet at the workshop. Sarcastic, authoritative in her commands and ballsy to have everyone follow her path even in a male-dominated craft. Competitive as hell, charmingly nerdy and hungry for knowledge, always unabashedly herself. Those had been his closest friends out there... and not a day went by that Leon didn’t miss them. Now, he didn’t think he’d actually looked for them with a conscious mind, he didn’t think he searched for those qualities that made them them. But they did have something in common. «It’s going to come off as corny,» he smiled sheepishly as he weaved together the words with his hands, «But I can’t help but admire people that make me want to be a bit better. You know? Those people that make you want to be a little more like them, people that have these-» he paused a little, almost lost in thought, coaxing his ideas into something he could explain, «-traits, qualities... that special energy to them- and you just know they’re out there making things better in a small scale or a big scale, it doesn’t matter... They’re not wasting their time, it feels like they have purpose and that they’re doing it right». He ran a hand through his hair, rubbing the back of his neck, feeling somewhat abashed for his incoherent response. For projecting... His friends were the sort of person he wished he could be. «People like that are just magnetic, I think».

[leon-cresswell]

toni​:

@leon-cresswell

Toni stared at the ground for some time. It took a bit of concentration and skill, none of which was beyond her, to raise portions of the ground up delicately and delineated enough to make clear characters. This time she spelled out ‘Grettings’ , missing the extra e and adding in an extra t, in clear blocky letters from the ground below.

“So’s there ought to be no misspellin’s in this one. I ain’t no hand with letters and it might’a taken a whole hell of a while to learn my readings but even someone as thick-headed as me can’t go wrong with jus’ one word.” Toni said as confident as she was wrong. She beamed over at Leon. Face all snaggle teeth and smile. Today the two earth attuned were teaching each other two fold. Leon, hopefully, helping Toni out with her spelling and Toni giving some earth attunement instruction on how to pull up words from the ground.

“Aw hell, here I go flapping my gums again. When I done been tol’ before. I got to form my words all clear an all.” She made sure Leon could follow her lips, best she could, before shaking her head. “I’m sorry boy. Tommy’s right in what he says ‘bout me. I’m always colloquializing.”

The misspelling wasn’t immediately noticed by Leon, who was still more impressed with the way Toni could so easily shape the earth at her feet into clear figures of letters. It truly was a neat trick, one that especially came in handy for him in order to communicate more efficiently with those that didn’t understand sign language. His expression said it all as he glanced at her. He was impressed and clearly eager to learn to do it himself. 

His eyes darted back to the topography of her writing and he picked up on the mistake then. «Missed an E and added an extra T,» he signed slowly, mouthing his silent words in a kind manner. It was what he enjoyed about spending time with Toni. They were both students and teachers all at once. It was a nice thing, helping each other get better like that. He rose both palms upwards, fingers moving in a curve, «Again?» he suggested. Practising would improve her spelling.

Leon grinned, a low sound coming from him. A quiet chuckle. «It’s okay. I’m better at listening, anyway,» he signed in response, a half-smile curving his lips. He enjoyed listening -in his silent way- to what others had to say, he happened to feel at ease most of the times letting the others fill the air with their ideas and feelings, even the most inconsequential of comments. Seeing them express themselves, learning about them- Leon was good at it, he was more than content playing that role in most of his interactions. And it wasn’t just because of the deafness and his lack of actual talking., Leon simply had a quiet nature. He knew in his bones that if even if things had been different for him, he probably wouldn’t have turned out to be a chatterbox. He would have embraced his silence anyway.

[leon-cresswell]

Date: February 16th, 2021 Time: Afternoon Location: North Beach

open starter (1/3)

Fishing had been a tricky thing for Leon after his earth attunement manifested itself. Water, in general, became a tricky thing. He’d found the hard way that getting into bodies of water was not the best of ideas. The finishing net he’d built out of pieces of seatbelts from the plane made the process of getting food from the ocean considerably less risky than the makeshift spear he had before. He could just leave the fishing net in place and after a while return to find what he’d caught.

Today was a good day. Two large dolphinfish. And while Leon wasn’t a particularly spiritual person in regards to his own life or that of others -human or otherwise-, he usually let a thought of gratitude pass through his mind about the creatures he hunted or fished, appreciation for the food he could consume to nurture himself, to keep on living.

After getting his catch of the day he prepared the fishes for cooking on a small fire he set up close to the Leander, by use of the trusty and rudimentary method of a long, spear-like stick above the fire. He had some herbs he’d been gifted by those working at the farm and could more or less season the fish. So the builder sat there by his fire, eating, making more portions to spare to give around the other people on North Beach. Chewing a chunk of his meal, he took notice of someone just a few meters away. Silently, he pointed towards the fire and the fishes cooking there before he beckoned for them to approach to get something to eat as well.

[leon-cresswell]

conor:

“You read it in a book?” Conor asked, raising her eyebrows. There weren’t that many books on the island and any of the ones she found were mostly bad mystery novels, or at least the ones she’d found more recently. There were also a lot of novels with teenagers in them. Someone told her they were called YA fiction. From what she’d read, it was a lot of rehashing of the same thing. When she was new on the island, the books made more sense to her and she enjoyed them. Most of the books that were discovered and saved on the island were stored in a specific place as a library of sorts so that everyone could read them. She stood there patiently as she waited for Leon to take out the book he’d been reading. 

She took the book in to her hands, running a finger over the spine and cover. It was older. Not paperback. Conor smiled as she read over the poem he pointed out. She moved on to the text on the margins of the page with details about the yacht. “Interesting,” she said as she signed. “Do you like poetry?” She flipped through the pages, looking to see who once owned the book. There were more notes and annotations on the pages. It looked like the person not only used it as a journal, but also read through the poems and wrote their own notes down. “Good find.” She handed the book back to him when she didn’t see any names or information to indicate who it belonged to. “I don’t think any of the other books I’ve found are like this.” She looked back up at the yacht. “Well, after you,” she told him with another smile, motioning for him to go in first. “I’ll give you a private tour. You just can’t tell anyone else about this place. Anyone else who comes here only comes here because they’ve found it on their own. Like you. So, welcome to the club.” 

He was aware just how strange it seemed that he’d learned about this in a book. That was why he ended up showing Conor what he meant, letting her peruse through the poetry book and read the notes on the margins- part journal, part literary analysis, part codes for a treasure hunt of sorts. It was a peculiar thing, and Leon had treasured it since he found it.

Leon felt a bit on the spot once she asked him if she liked poetry. He certainly never felt like he could read it and comprehend it all, sometimes the language was too flowery, too elevated for him to fully grasp what the author meant. But yeah, he enjoyed reading it. He hadn’t really been exposed to much poetry back home but having a very reduced library here meant he’d opened himself to the possibility of reading it because it was what was available.«Yeah, I like it,» he signed, his response followed by a sheepish shrug. «I don’t always understand it...» he made sure to clarify. Not that anyone would confuse him for a literary connoisseur either way. «But I like it».

Conor had clearly been here before, already seeming much more knowledgable for this place than he was just by the notes he’d read about it. «Wouldn’t tell anyone even if I wanted to,» he half-joked as he signed back to her, smiling. But he made a sign of crossing his heart, just for good measure. The secret was safe with him. Leon couldn’t help but laugh goodheartedly when Conor told him he was part of the club now. «That’s more like pub, tavern». That sort of club. He fingerspelled the word and then simply signed the letter C. Short way of saying it. Easier to avoid confusion. This wasn’t the first time it happened- meanings getting crossed when Conor and he signed. He knew little about her, frankly, but he knew that she was someone who had been on the island for quite a long time and her sign language lexicon sometimes reflected that.    

[newalphonsus]

I believe it’s because we’re meant to find each-other. It’s like destiny. (insp.)

[leon-cresswell]

sylvie​:

Drizzly afternoon, North Beach closed with @leon-cresswell ∞

“Shit,” Sylvie hissed under her breath, her heart sinking lower in her chest with each step she took toward her shelter - or, what used to be a shelter. She’d totally dropped the ball on any repairs and renovations to bolster the little hut during the rainy season, and the bits of wreckage Emre had so carefully collected now lay in a dejected-looking pile. How stupid she felt, then, for neglecting one of the most important things keeping her safe on the island and the only home that had ever been truly hers, as humble as it’d been. 

For several long minutes, all she could do was stare at the heap and try to suppress the burning that rose in her throat, tears pricking her eyes and threatening their escape. What would she do now? The question loomed darker than the clouds above, and as she turned it over in her mind something seemed to shift in the atmosphere. The raindrops began falling fatter, faster, and heavier by the minute.

Wiping her face on her sleeves, Sylvie gathered as much of herself as was possible and knelt down besides her ruined shelter. The largest pieces were too heavy for her to lift alone, so Sylvie busied herself moving aside smaller bits to get to her few belongings underneath. Her cards and special little abalone shell were relatively easy to find and tuck away in her bag, but her extra clothes were proving more difficult to get to. She sighed heavily, falling back on her heels and pushing wet tendrils of hair behind her ears. “This blows,” she whispered to no one in particular, sniffling and craning her neck towards the sky. The droplets that pelted her were a welcome distraction from the hopeless task at hand.

The light rain caught Leon in the middle of his excursion into the jungle. He didn’t mind the water like this -subtle as it fell all around- than he did when it was concentrated in larger bodies such as ponds, rivers, or the very ocean that kept them all trapped here. He carried his backpack, his trusty tool belt, and a plastic tarp strapped to his back by rope. Inside the tarp there were various pieces of wood of varying sizes, carefully wrapped to keep dry. It was that time of the week again that the builder ventured around the island -the jungle, most of the times- to look for and gather materials.

Leon emerged from the jungle, hair and clothes equally damp, a casual and steady sway to his gait. It was a greying day, a weeping day, but it had actually been a purposeful day. He didn’t come back with a small bundle, which was always a good thing. He’d found quite a few sturdy mahogany branches and was on his way to the Leander to store them for later use when Sylvie caught his attention, just some meters away. She stood before what looked like- well, not much. Just a pile of an crumbled down assortment of materials. Her dejection was easy to read, even from a distance, and Leon could put two and two together, gathering what that sad pile had been.

The builder cleared his throat as he approached to make his presence known, hoping to avoid startling her. He waved a hand once she looked in his direction and used the sign named he’d given her, accompanied by a small smile. He couldn’t smile too long, though, not when she seemed so devastated. «What happened to it?» he asked, pointing towards the ruined shelter.

[leon-cresswell]

piper:

♥❤♥

Despite not knowing him, and despite her initial fright at seeing his hulking frame, standing beside him and feeling the heat of the living was itself a comfort. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to wash off the feeling of death touching her, but damn she planned to try. <Nice to meet you, too,> she returned, still mouthing along, the rust of her sign slowly flaking off. She tacked on his name at the end, saying it aloud for her own memory. 

When he touched his own ear, she realized his meaning and her mouth formed an ‘o’. Having nails driven into her ears would have been kinder and more welcome than listening to the bellows, shrieks, and pleas. They made her feel at once desperate to help and desperate to flee. <That’s good! I’m glad. They’ve driven me close to mad,> she admitted clumsily. <Do you know the way out?>

Without warning she poked him in the arm then smiled up at him sheepishly. <Just checking.>

«As long as it’s only sounds, I’ll be okay,» he assured, signing firmly and displaying some confidence in his posture. If the ghosts happened to materialise into visible beings that could haunt them... well, he wouldn’t be immune to that shock then. But as he said, as long as it was only sounds, he couldn’t be harmed or driven to awful thoughts by them, and the two of them could stick together. Getting out of this with some company surely was better than having to do it alone.

Leon looked around, studying the area where they were. He couldn’t see where the way back to North Beach was, but his attunement let him get a general sense of where it was. A presence on the earth, almost, a hint of where their shelters stood in the distance. «In that direction,» he finally signed, pointing with a hand.

She suddenly poked him and he blinked a few times, caught a bit off guard. But it dawned on him fairly quickly why she’d done it. He didn’t say anything, only looked at her with a kind expression and nodded.  «Come on. Let’s make it out of here,» he added with a small, reassuring smile.

[leon-cresswell]

teak​:

٩◔̯◔۶ … ఠ ͟ಠ

Teak grabbed Leon back, taking his hand and frantically signing against it so they didn’t have to look away from those shoveling apparitions, sheer despair showing on their greasy, strange faces. Why did people from olden times have such messed-up faces? With the features all slightly off-balance? It just made them even creepier and Teak hated it, he resented having to see these things at all. Crash-landing on the island had been bad enough, but at least it was tropical and warm and had lots of eye-candy; this, on the other hand, was unrelentingly awful.

+ Don’t think they want help, + Teak signed, probably garbling some of his words in his haste to press them into Leon’s warm palm. + Not friendly. Not real. +

He stumbled a bit, trying to grab at Leon and swing him around, drag him off back towards the beach and other people and none of these undead apparitions. Which, unfortunately, pause in their shoveling; one of them points at the two living men, and then they start charging across the grass,

Straight at them.

They were stranded on a strange island of which there was no escape, where people didn’t grow old and lived impossibly long lives, while also acquiring unexplainable elemental powers... Leon didn’t know why ghosts was where he’d drawn the line, why he was naive enough to believe things couldn’t get stranger. Seeing those apparitions was almost a bit too much, and the builder felt something coil in his stomach and crawl down his spine.

He was barely registering Teak’s messages, unable to look away from the ghoulish beings that materialized in front of them. They looked so bizarrely inhuman but their expressions as they wailed and pleaded looked so recognizable, like the masks of pain from real people when they suffered. Leon almost felt sympathy for them, caught up in the paradox of fearing them and finding threads of empathy wanting to link him to them.

But they had to run. Who the hell knew what these beings wanted, and if they could harm the living. Them, and any other of the islanders they found. So as the ghosts charged towards them, Leon and Teak ran for dear life. They ran on and on. Teak led the way and he followed, reaching an area with dense vegetation where it would be easier to take cover. There, he managed to get the other guy’s attention and signaled for him to stop and lay down on the ground. With his body pressed to the earth, Leon’s hand’s were flat against the ground and he took the gamble of emitting vibrations through the earth, sending them away from them, as if trailing a path deep into the jungle. If the ghosts were hunting them by sound, those vibrations would lead them in the opposite direction of where they were hiding.

Leon tried to keep his heavy breathing quiet, his shock and exertion manifested in that way as well as the hurried drumming of his heart against his ribs. Bloody hell, he thought over and over. He glanced over at Teak, crouched down against the ground as well, and they waited in silence. He tried to read the other man’s reactions, see in his expression if Teak was still hearing the ghosts close by.

But even if they did manage to escape those creepy spectres now, Leon was terribly aware that there were more. Many more.

END.

[leon-cresswell]

conor​:

After spending nearly a hundred years on the island, sometimes the best way to stay sane was explore the island and go through all the things that had landed there. Despite being a fairly social person who enjoyed the company of others, there were times when Conor liked to be alone or in smaller groups instead of with everyone all the time. Today, after spending so many hours with other people building a new extended shelter as a med bay of sorts, Conor needed some time on her own to decompress.

She made her way to one of her favorite hiding spots, a yacht, that few people knew about. It wasn’t in great shape to make it into a home, and quite frankly she didn’t want anyone else to come live with her there because she knew there would be people who would follow her. Instead, she kept it mostly to herself and if anyone else found it, they never told anyone else about it. She headed there today to poke around and see if she could find anything interesting about the people who used to own the yacht or anything useful she could take back to her own little “house.”

As she began to climb up into the yacht, she noticed someone out of the corner of her eye. Conor glanced over and noticed a familiar face, someone she was surprised to see. Usually whenever she went there, she was by herself. “Oh, hey,” she said with a smile and a wave. She knew sign language and tried to communicate with Leon before, but soon realized that her ASL was wildly out of date compared to his. They could still communicate with it and she’d still speak out loud so he could read her lips, but at the start there was some miscommunication. “Um, eventually you find these kinds of things after spending a hundred years here,” she replied. She did wonder though how she’d spent a hundred years here and still hadn’t remembered anything about how she landed on the island or hadn’t found any sign of how she’d gotten there. “How did you learn about it?” she asked, signing as she spoke.

Conor had been on the island for far longer than he had. Hell, she’d been alive far longer than he had. It made sense that after an adventure or two to kill some of the endless time on Meridium, she had discovered secrets that others hadn’t. «Read it on a book,» he signed in response, holding up a hand to indicate his explanation wasn’t over just yet. Leon was quick to rummage through his backpack and after a moment he produced an old copy of William Blake’s poems. Frankly, he was still wondering what had drawn the anonymous keeper of the secret of the yacht to this particular book to tell his story. Granted, Matthew’s so-called library aboard the Leander wasn’t so extensive to have that vast a repertoire to select from it, but if the person’s wish was simply to write, all paper was just paper and anything would have been enough. Leon had a feeling that the unknown person had picked Blake’s collection of poems with purpose.

Silently but with curiosity in his eyes and a small, kind smile on his lips, he handed over the book. It was open, right on the poem titled Tyger, Tyger. He tapped the page, showing Conor that near the end of the poem, by two lines that read ‘When the stars threw down their spears / And water’d heaven with their tears’ there was something written by the margins. Just chopped off text about the yacht and where it shipwrecked. «Someone used this book as a journal. Mentioned this yacht and this location». It went without saying that his intrigue about it all had led him here after reading the mysterious person’s ramblings on the pages.

[leon-cresswell]

emre​:

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Emre watched Leon, and honestly didn’t know how the big man did it.  He wasn’t sure how long Leon had been living on this island, but he assume it was long enough to know how things worked.  And the fact that Leon didn’t just throw a complete wobbly and knock every one of these talking, hearing people down on their arses in sheer frustration - and sense of isolation - was beyond him. 

Emre mentally added one more item to his list of things he needed to learn quickly:  sign language.

At least, just enough so that Leon wasn’t the one doing all the work.  

And when the Dad stomped off,  Emre was left alone with Leon.  He didn’t bother going along to plead his own case to Matthew.  Emre figured whatever happened, happened, and he wasn’t about to make a case of it, before a judge.  

Instead, he got chastised by Leon, and Emre nodded, waving a hand.  “Yeah man, I know, I know.  No fighting.  He came after me.  I was just protecting the farm, like Tomas asked.”  Tomas never asked this of Emre.  Emre had just taken it upon himself, instead.  

He was surprised, when Leon elaborated on Emre’s off-the-cuff observation.  Leon actually had an answer for it - it had once been his actual job.  In Liverpool no less, and Emre broke into a grin.

“Oi!  I didn’t know you was English!  Finally. Not another Yank, yeah?”  Emre pat Leon’s big bicep in a chummy way.  “I’ve been up to Liverpool a couple times.” He held up two fingers, but realized he shouldn’t elaborate.  It wasn’t like the trips were for fun.

Instead, Emre recalled what Iyaz had taught him - that one move to make in sign language, before they started to argue again.

“Anyway, erm.  Yeah. Thank you, mate,” Emre said, feeling awkward and silly, and hoping Leon didn’t think he was trying to insult him.

Leon let out a sigh. The situation could have gone much better but at least it hadn’t completely derailed into an all out brawl between Emre and the pissed off dad. It might even be called a ‘win’, since ultimately a big tussle didn’t take place.

He turned towards Emre and nodded slowly along his words, reading everything from his lips and frankly, agreeing with his stance on this matter. The farm was crucial to everyone’s survival on the island and it was a noble thing to try and protect it. «Next time don’t hit the kid, even if he was being a tosser,» he signed in response. Leon had already gathered that the boy hadn’t been innocent in all of this, but hitting him had been... a bit out of line, if anyone asked him.

Emre seemed content to discover he was a fellow Englishman and Leon accepted the pat with a small smile. Would he treat him differently now that he knew they came from the same country? He had no idea, but at least Leon could appreciate the sense of commonality he felt a moment. He didn’t get that often. «My accent is hard to get across,» he responded with a shrug, a remark that came off both somewhat humorous and serious at the same time. It was the sort of fun he poked at himself from time to time. He didn’t even recall what a scouser accent sounded like, having lost his hearing in his earliest of years. He sometimes liked to think that if he ever spoke, his words would come out in that distinctive cadence, that he would have that special little something to identify him as that particular part of the big whole of who he was. But he hadn’t used his voice in ages, had no clue what it might sound like, had no clue how he was supposed to sound like as a man from Liverpool.

For a moment there, Leon saw Emre as the other man admitted to having been in Liverpool before. For some reason his mind wandered back to a particular chaotic occurrence at his cousin’s club a few years back. Having seen Emre throw fists just a few minutes ago, he seemed to Leon like someone who could have been at Vinny’s back then. Or at the very least he was reminding him of one of the men he had to drag out of the club. Leon found himself frowning a little, but ultimately pushing the faint memory aside.

His hands moved together as he signed «No problem». He even smiled a little when Emre integrated some sign language as he spoke. It was always very welcomed when someone else tried to communicate Leon’s language. «Let’s not make a habit out of this, yeah?» he signed, mouthing along. He wasn’t trying to be judgy or anything, but Emre certainly came across as someone who didn’t shy away from a fight. Who knew if he might have to break off more fights in the future.

END.

[leon-cresswell]

piper:

♥❤♥

As misplaced as her wariness may be, she was glad the stranger kept his distance for now. Her spine was so tight with fear and anxiety she thought it might snap. Though, the longer she watched him the less he set of warning bells. Her eyes dropped to his hands as he signed. Thanks to a discount dvd bin she’d learned just enough ASL to delight the stray kid with it that visited the fair. Many of the long time employees had done the same.

Piper shook her head no in reply. She’d had her fair number of tumbles in the jungle, landing on her knees, her wrists, she’d been grabbed and dragged, shoved—but she’d always been hardy. If the living couldn’t smack her down, the dead wouldn’t be able to. <Later I might feel worse,> she said, signing along to the best of her abilities, with a brittle grin. <I’m Piper,> she continued, fingerspelling her name. Tentatively she approached him. <Are you okay?>

It was always a pleasant surprise to learn other people understood sign language and he deeply appreciated her well-enough skills to use it. It released him from the concern of trying to make himself understood, or the disappointment of withdrawing when he was unable to do. Right now, there were plenty of things to be concerned about to have to add that to the list.

He nodded along subly as she signed. He could simpathise with the feeling. Leon wasn’t feeling too terribly at present, but he was sure that once he was back on his cot, slept it all off, and started to think more clearly about the events of the day he might quietly freak out a little and question a lot of things about existence now that it was confirmed that on top of every other rarity of Meridium, ghosts were real.

«Nice to meet you,» he signed, trying to be polite even if the circumstances of their meeting weren’t exactly nice. «Leon,» he fingerspelled in return to introduce himself to her. He shook his head after she asked him if he was okay. He wasn’t hurt, fortunately. He was only unsettled about the situation and how much it had rattled everyone. «They haven’t driven me mad yet,» he mouthed as he signed and then touched his ear. He had been immune to the eerie voices of the spirits thus far, having focused more on trying to help the other islanders than escaping the creepy ghouls’ whispers and cries.

[leon-cresswell]

Do you want to fall in love someday?

A small smile made its way to his lips and Leon felt almost sheepish smiling like that, feeling naive for having a dream-like, idealistic idea of love. It was something he hadn’t experienced yet -a fact that earned him a few befuddled looks when he admitted it to others- so he possibly had a less tainted vision of if than those who had experienced its messy bits already. Leon had liked some girls in the past. Had kissed them. Had had sex with them only to find that something always seemed to be missing, an emotional component that made him feel like a puzzle piece wasn’t fitting. But yeah, romantic love- he hadn’t felt that. And he wanted to. «Yes,» he signed simply.

[leon-cresswell]

Date: January 22nd, 2021 Time: Afternoon Location: Western cove

@conorxoblivion​

The Leander was full of surprises. To this day, Leon hadn’t yet uncovered every little secret there was aboard the old ship he called his home. He discovered notes on the margins of a book he’d borrowed from Matthew’s quote-unquote library. Someone had written down thoughts, experiences, fears, taken up journaling on whatever paper was available to stay sane, most likely. It was intriguing to read both the novel and those unrelated notes, a written echo of someone’s life on the island. What caught his attention the most were two little paragraphs that described the wreckage that landed that anonymous writer on Meridium.

Leon hadn’t yet learned from anyone of a yacht that ran aground just past the Western cove. The curiosity was enough to get him to plan an excursion, and if there happened to be useful supplies there, all the better.

The silent builder woke up before daybreak the next day and made his way to the supposed location of that old wreckage. He went there equipped with the usual items. His backpack to carry back whatever materials and tools he might find. His toolbelt hanging from his waist with a couple of screwdrivers, an old-looking knife inside his handmade sheath. His trusty metallic torch, in case he needed light on his way back if he stayed on the Western cove for too long.

He’d been readying himself all morning to expect anything -even the possible disappointment of not finding what he was looking for. He had considered the likelihood that those mysterious notes on the book might have just been the ramblings of a desperate castaway losing their mind. But the yacht was there, torn and stuck deep into the jagged terrain of the cove, half-submerged in a watery cave. What he hadn’t prepared himself to expect was that someone else would be there.

Leon waved a hand at the sight of Conor once she made eye contact with him as he approached the rocky area to descend towards the old wreckage. «Hi, Conor,» he mouthed. He hadn’t come up with a sign name for her yet, so he simply fingerspelled her name. «I didn’t think anyone else knew about this,» he added, pointing towards the old yacht. «How did you learn about it?» Maybe the stranger who wrote on the book left other clues elsewhere about the vessel that doomed them to this island.

[leon-cresswell]

Do you have any hidden talents? Something people on the island might not know about you?

Leon couldn’t help but grin before his hands moved to sign ‘paper’ and ‘fold’ as he mouthed «Origami». He’d been mocked endlessly by his cousin, who insisted it was quite a dorky hobby. He never really cared whether Vinny was right or not. He happened to enjoy the whole process of it, from the patience required to learn new creations to the precision that went into creating the smallest of folds that would give form to countless shapes. Paper was a precious resource on Meridium, as most things were, and he'd never made use of it to indulge his hobby, so of course, no one knew. «Any shape, you name it, I can get it done».

[leon-cresswell]

sylvie​:

∞

Sylvie stood still and allowed Leon to comfort her, an unfamiliar and welcome feeling, but she was mostly relieved that he seemed willing to move entirely past the subject. He was the second person now, besides Emre, to suggest that she see someone about her injury, and she begrudgingly accepted the idea. Sylvie was raised to avoid doctors, but - things were different here, she reminded herself. «I will. After we get out of here.» She softened her gaze, looking at him with a tiny, grateful smile. 

Her expression faded, though, when Sylvie heard an indescribable noise far-off in the distance. She whipped her head around, checking that the pair of them were still alone, and it seemed to her like they were still safe. At his question, she furrowed her brow. Did she want to keep searching? What Sylvie wanted more than anything in that moment was to be brave. She wanted to want to keep searching, to help find the missing people, to do what she came to do in the first place. But who was she kidding, pretending to have courage? Where did the morning’s bravery go? «We should go back how we came, and maybe meet the others,» she offered, noncommittal. The last thing she wanted was for Leon to feel obligated to escort her back to the beach.

He gave a nod in response. Sylvie didn’t seem particularly keen on having that bruising checked. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions as to why she wouldn’t immediately embrace the idea of getting healed, as he figured most people would in such a situation. He silently wished it had nothing to do with her possibly feeling threatened or in some kind of danger. Leon didn’t press the matter, knowing it wasn’t his place to do so, but he’d make sure to check up on her in a few days to see how the healing was coming along.

Sylvie was clearly still hearing those eerie voices around them judging by her sudden movements and the way she looked around. His deafness kept him safe from that creeping madness, that unknown danger. «Good idea,» he signed in response. He appreciated the middle ground of her proposal. Leon himself had a way of being passive, of not making choices, and doing what Sylvie suggested sounded more like letting the choice find them.

Leon glanced around, trying to pick up if there were any other dangers around that he should be aware of before they trekked back that same path that led them there. He didn’t perceive any threat right away and still with a steadying arm on her shoulder, he began walking.

END.

[leon-cresswell]

TAKÉNOBU - “FIGHT TO MAKE IT UP”

You fight to make it up, look another way Heart in hand you hold, tear a year away Have to hold, leaves you cold Makes you grow, takes its toll