Oyama Yuriko (小山 ゆり子) (yuriko_o) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2013-07-13 18:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, beleg cuthalion, oyama yuriko (lady deathstrike) |
Who: Beleg Cuthalion and Yuriko Oyama
What: Random meeting
Where: A park in La Habra near Yuriko's home
When: June 23 or so
Rating/Warnings: PG for mild innuendo
Status: Complete
Yuriko had stepped out of the house for a little while - Turin had had to leave, and she had told her aunt that she needed to be alone. Everything was climbing up to whisper in her ear - all the logistics of Father’s services, and the dreams which were still playing on repeat behind her eyes.
Thankfully, there was a park a few blocks from her house, and she headed there to walk. Nature helped.
Nature did help! So did ice cream. It helps lots. So thinks Beleg Cuthalion, who is standing between a tree and a ice cream cart, happily licking away at some cookies and cream ice cream on a sugar cone, ears growing ever more pointier, with a ginormous black yew bow strapped to his back. He's receiving odd looks, but he resembled some escapee from a ren faire...even if he was the real deal.
Yuriko had been walking for a while when she came upon the spectacle of Beleg. She raised an eyebrow - at this point, she just hoped he was real and not some figment of her imagination. “I’m sorry,” she said, coming up to him, “but I must inquire, as it has been a very strange day. Are you in fact real?”
Beleg's tongue was stuck in mid-lick on the ice cream cone, but he gave himself an experimental poke in the stomach with his other hand. He finished that lick, nodded, and then - when his mouth was ice cream free - confirmed her suspicions.
"Indeed, I am most verily real, as much as you are," Beleg said with great cheer and confidence. "Please don't pinch the ears? Some little old lady did that this morning and it hurt, also most verily."
She couldn’t help but smile. “I had to ask. If you have been here for very long, you are aware of this place playing tricks on one’s senses. And with stress, the tricks become worse.” She looked at the ears, and then the tip of the bow. “I am sure that in any other place, meeting a man who resembles an elf would be thought more than a trifle strange. But I am glad you’re real.” She chuckled slightly. “My name is Yuriko, incidentally.”
"Stress? I have little of that! Worries, to be certain? But stress only happens when a large bear or lion or other animal, is coming at my face with it's jaws wide open," was his ready reply. He bowed and then straightened, the ice cream held out so it didn't land on the ground. "I am Beleg Cuthalion. Your name sounds familiar. Are you on the valar network too?"
The irony of that network name was not lost on Beleg, for what it was worth.
“Yes, I am. Though your name is familiar as well - I mean, I seem to recall you are on television, or used to be? But my boyfriend has mentioned a Beleg, speaking of bears. A camping trip, I think - and I would not imagine your name is so common.” Yuriko was amused at the pleasant coincidence. “Do you know Turin Turambar?”
"Oh, not television, but a web series! Beleg Cuthalion, big bow hunter," Beleg proclaimed, most merrily, and continued proclaiming. "I bow hunt and am nearly eaten by animals and fall off cliffs. It's quite the adventure! Speaking of adventure, you are helping to keep things lively for Turin if you are the nice girl who he's been seeing? He needed that, otherwise he would be miserable and gloomy. Thank you!"
Beleg patted her on the shoulder a few times, lightly enough not to hurt, and long enough to prove that he has no such thing as personal space boundaries. It's a wonder that he didn't give her a...nope, nevermind, there he goes, hugging her for a fleeting moment, somehow managing not to drop his ice cream the entire time. Elven balance ftw!
Yuriko didn’t mind the hug. She smiled, patting him on the shoulder as well. “I do not know if I’m the the ‘nice girl’, maybe I am the naughty girl, if he has another one on a string,” she joked. “But yes, I consider Turin a boyfriend.”
"Oh that's very good. He needs things like stability and fawning over, or he makes sour faces," Beleg said, pulling a sour face to display what Turin might look like when he was in a funk. It was a really good impression, actually. "He should be happy and ride off into a sunset, happily, with a pretty girl, even if she is naughty."
Beleg was merely being truthful, for he was 110% loyal, and would never in a million and one years, ever ruin anything good for Turin. Plus he's just not into dating or relationships. It's weird.
"Do you like ice cream?" he asked, for ice cream had become one of his momentary interests. The only constant ones were hunting and his friends. "I can barter for some if you'd like a cone. It's fantastic!"
Yuriko couldn’t help but giggle at the face. “That is indeed Turin-san,” she said cheerfully. It felt good to laugh. “I am grateful for the compliment ... and honestly, ice cream sounds nice. But I do have money, so there is no need for barter.” She reached into her pockets, knowing she had a bill or two in there. “I have temporarily escaped a house of mourning, so I am glad to run into a happy soul. What brings you out, Beleg-san?”
"I'm sorry that you have to be in a house of mourning at all. As for me, I am almost always outdoors," Beleg replied, in good spirits. "It is rare to find someone of my ilk, hiding under roof or eaves. I sleep in the trees!"
He began munching on the sugarcone while asking who it was that passed away, "If'm yoo dom'b mimb me askin'...who'mph dwied?"
Yuriko thought she understood. “My father, but he was very ill. I expected it to happen.” And now at least she had family around to help with the planning. And the food. She would eat for months on the leftovers.
"Oh, I am indeed sorry to hear that," Beleg said, looking thoughtful and for once not having his mouth full. "At least you are outdoors? The fresh air and sunshine will help you far more than being kept closed in at such a solemn, sorrowful time."
“I think that was my idea in coming out here.” Yuriko bobbed her head in agreement. “A Japanese house of mourning is oppressive, by Western standards. I accept my duty, but sometimes, I think, one just needs to breathe.”
"This is the best place for breathing!" Beleg took a look around and then quickly amended, "Or mayhap it is better to breathe, where there are fewer people and buildings and things? And much, much more in the way of trees and wild creatures. Certainly, that must be so!"
“In other words, the great outdoors?” Yuriko smiled. “I do like nature. It’s peaceful. But I would prefer company, and for some reason, Turin does not strike me as much of an outdoorsman.” He was a bit too attached to most of his electronic writing tools. In truth, it was rather endearing.
"Oh, he can be very outdoorsy," Beleg assured her, with a nod of his head. Mostly because, in his dreams, he had taught Turin every Elvish trick he knew about the outdoors and healing. All of which was what made Turin very difficult to track and catch up with, even for a master hunter such as Beleg. "But I suppose it must be when the mood suits him. I, myself, would prefer to while away the hours under the boughs of trees, than to be under a roof for more than ten minutes!"
“Can he.” Yuriko smiled. “That is news to me! Perhaps I will have to insist. The outdoors is lovely to me. I have spent several nights in the stars’ company.”
"Oh, that is a wonderful idea! You should do that. It would do him some good to get out, with someone he loves, for that is a very romantic notion. I say that not as one of the eldar, but as one of the eldar who was reborn in France, due to some strange twist of reincarnated fate!"
Or at least that's what born-again Beleg believes.
“What are the eldar?” Yuriko asked, curious. She was interested in this friend of Turin’s. He was very soulful, if slightly ... strange. Though his idea about being outdoors with Turin was good.
"Oh, that's the name given to the Elves," he explained with the greatest of ease. "Though I am one of those who did not make the journey to Aman, which was a land far far away. I think I preferred it where I was, roaming on the outskirts of a hidden forest as a marchwarden!"
Well, that was not what she’d expected to hear. A lot of unusual words and phrases that he really seemed to believe. In the end, Yuriko decided to answer him normally; he wasn’t hurting anyone, after all. “We Japanese do not have elves in our folklore. I think we only begun to hear of them when great works were translated from the English. I do enjoy stories of creatures like that, though.”
"Oh we're not creatures though? I know! Ask Turin. He'll explain it," was Beleg's kindly offered reply, not even a little sad or deterred by being questioned at all. He was far too patient for that! "I'm not sure of any great works, but I am certain of what I am. These ears do not come off and alas, if they did! I would look funny indeed, without them!"
Yuriko bowed, sumimasen style. “I used the word ‘creature’ as opposed to human. I apologize for my imperfect English.”
"I'm not offended at all," Beleg told Yuriko, with a smile. He even bowed back at her, narrowly missing her head with the top of that big huge uber bow. "But Turin knows and he can reassure you that I am what I am. For I am being an honest Elf, for I have a bad habit of always telling the truth!"
“I certainly would not doubt your veracity, Beleg-san.” Yuriko chuckled. “It would be rude in the extreme.”
"Ahh, thank you! It would not do to be doubted overly much, methinks!"
Yuriko smiled. “I was born in Japan, and we place a premium on politeness. Sometimes to the detriment of other things, but nonetheless. The ghosts of my parents would haunt me were I to be offensive.” It was surprisingly okay to poke fun like that; she’d made her peace with Father crossing over some time ago. It just had to happen.
"That sounds spooky. I fear for you if you should ever lose your temper and be rude! But I think that, upon looking upon you, that you are kind and would do no such thing. You will be good for Turin! He needs someone to be patient with him."
Beleg even gave her a most positive thumbs up! It was uncharacteristically not elvish, but Beleg came from a rougher point in time, and he was sort of an odd one to begin (and end) with.
“He makes it easy.” Yuriko smiled. “He is very pleasant to be around for me; he just needs a gentle poke back in line, so to speak. I have wondered what gives him such fatalism, but I haven’t felt it my business to ask yet.”
A poke back in line? Goodness! Beleg was glad he had no one to poke him back in line! Except maybe a bear or a mountain lion. But those didn't count, because those were adventurous!
Back on topic and being the sort of loyal friend that Beleg was, he wouldn't ever rat out Turin's inadvertent and totally accidental murdering of another elf. Especially not to his girlfriend. As it was, Beleg had the sense that the dreams weren't finished quite yet. That was why Beleg smiled kindly and told Yuriko, "I think it is better that whatever burdens Turin might have on his mind, he will share it with you in his own good time. Perhaps when he finds the right words to do so. Alas! I know not what thoughts plague him, for he is a mystery to me as well as to others."
“Oh, I quite agree. I would not want my friends sharing my business. I merely commented because I wish he would share it so I can help.” Yuriko smiled a little. “I am not without my own secrets.”
"I know best not to pry in other people's secrets," was Beleg's response. "Some things are oft better left to the person that possesses them. There is little comfort in the knowing, even if I am also of a mind that there is less of a burden in sharing. I can only suggest, with Turin, that patience is a virtue you must exercise in abundance!"
He started to laugh, because - as much as he loved his friend Turin as a brother-in-arms - that was an understatement and a half!
Yuriko chuckled. “If he wishes to tell me, he will. I only mean that in a truly deep relationship of any kind, trust must be paramount.” She liked his laugh; it was unfettered and uncaring of what others might think of it. She wished she could be a bit more like that.
"You seem most wise, and if you understand that? Then all will be well!" Beleg exclaimed while laughing. Yes, he could leave Turin in her care and not have to worry at all over the fate of his friend, from here on out. That was a huge relief to him, in the event a bear ate his face off or he tripped and fell off a cliff somewhere.
“I certainly hope so.” Yuriko smiled, though seeing the clock on the ice cream stand turned it into a grimace. “Unfortunately, I think I must return; it takes an age to get into traditional Japanese mourning clothing.”
"Ah! Yes, it must be very elaborate," Beleg said, waving at her with one hand. "It was nice to meet you! Fare thee well, lady."
“It was nice to meet you as well; I will give Turin your good greetings, if I see him first!” Yuriko bowed formally, feeling she ought to show respect. “Farewell, Beleg-san.”
Beleg nodded his head to her, eyes wide, not sure if he should bow or not. Oh, what the heck. He bowed to her anyway, because it seemed like the nice thing to do.
That formality was utterly shattered when Beleg cheerfully raised one hand up after the bow was over, waved it around in the air like a flappy bird’s wing, and said quite loudly, “Bye bye!”