Tawny Brown - A Beef Stew fanfiction

5 - Bleached Tan

Beef had only snapped from his mournful daze once the second lighting strike smited down onto Boople so abruptly, staring in their direction in fear over what might have happened to them, only for his sights to slowly lower down to a tiny, bleached tan cat struggling to balance the large glass ball between two paws. His friend's eyes were a very familiar blue color, and atop their head was a little multicolored propeller hat that just barely fit between their perked ears, giving them the hilariously similar appearance to their own branded character. With a deep sigh of relief, Beef cracked a hesitant smile towards them and Boople returned it eagerly, purring in satisfaction and wiggling their rear end a little at the orb's pleasant results on their form, before the both of them turned and stared at Burren once the man broke into a fit of wheezing coughs.

"B- Burren...!" Beef exclaimed in concern, watching his friend clear out his dry throat and wince from the stinging pain in his abdomen.

"I- I'm fine, I'll be fine, I just..." Swallowing hard, Burren lets out a weak but sincere laugh, hand shakily reaching up to rub one side of his own face, before brushing the wavy locks out of his eyes a bit. "I've earned my rest... you guys can do this without me."

"But... but Burren, you can't die!" His voice cracked mournfully in disbelief, and Beef gently shook Burren by the shoulders, attempting to keep his friend's eyes just slightly more awake. Hoping to chase that sliver of life left behind those glassy frames.

"I'm strong, but... not that strong, buddy..." Burren grunted and carefully pushed Beef's hand away, turning his head to the sky and letting drops of rain smudge the frames of his glasses. "Twilight is upon me... and soon, night must fall..."

Beef struggled to accept the truth of it, but with how injured his friend was from that previous lighting strike, it was no surprise that this would be the end of Burren's arc. He had done his part in the story, had brought them to their enemy, and the enemy chose him as the first to fall, so that Boople and Beef might live on to change how things might be written. Even still, doubt crept up in his throat and he felt the urge to scream out in anger, his paws trembling and muzzle twitching, flicking water droplets off his whiskers.

"But we need you, Burren..." he finally croaked out, lowering his head in defeat, soggy hair falling partially over his eyes. "I've come to you for help, and-"

Lifting up one hand to silence Beef before he could ramble in distress, Burren coughed a little and tilted his head to the side now, hand falling to rest on his chest just above the wound. "You don't need any more help... you know everything you need, friend."

Sighing softly, Beef attempted to trust his words a little more deeply, glancing down to his trembling paws and staring at the pads on each toe, before clenching them like fists and raising his sights in determination. Sucking in a tougher breath as if motivated by Burren's pain, feeling the forceful urge to finish what was started. "Then... I really can fix this, can't I?"

"Heh, not yet... not until you confront Rev..." Burren wheezed out with a wise, knowing grin, barely gesturing one hand to where the beast had fallen before, during the beast's fatal tussle with Boople. Beef's brown sights locked over to stare in naive disbelief at the deep, ragged claw marks Rev had left on that edge of the roof, a seemingly failed attempt to scramble himself away from falling. He shouldn't have assumed that the beast was dead from only a fall from this height, but in the heat of the moment, Beef had hoped that might have been a lucky case.

"Defeat Rev..." Burren allowed himself to speak more firmly with the minimal energy he had left, grinning widely now before calmly draping his arm over his glasses, sighing and relaxing in his spot. "...and then, only then, will you be able to fix this story..."

For a while, everyone became silent and vigil, each soaking in the now gentle sounds of rain brushing through the trees, and deep rumbles of thunder crackling far away in the distance, occasionally flickering with streaks of spider lightning crawling along the clouds. By the time Beef looked to Burren, however, his friend had vanished entirely in that silence, leaving no traces behind apart from small patches of blood on the roof tiles that quickly washed away with the weather. Both him and Boople exchanged a solemn yet knowing glance, sharing their deep understanding in the continued quiet, and Boople broke the silence only after enough appropriate time was given.

"He's earned his peace... no longer grappled by the shackles of this fanfiction..." Boople's voice was slightly squeakier with this new form of theirs, but they still spoke with every ounce of seriousness, and soon smiled up at him again, gently nudging the powerful orb forward so that it rolled to his feet. Reaching down to pick it up and clutch it securely, letting the glassy surface cling to the pads on his paws, Beef nods and beckons for Boople to come, as they bounded over and found an appropriate spot to jump onto his shoulder, clinging firmly to his hoodie with tiny hooked claws.

After an embarrassing struggle to find their way off the roof safely, and a quick scour of the area to discover that Rev was indeed nowhere in sight, though the ground had been displaced with dinosaur footprints and the grass was vaguely stained with flicks of fresh blood, Beef and Boople quickly ventured off where the footprints lead into the forest. He had stuffed the powerful orb in his large hoodie pocket for safe keeping, which awkwardly bulged out his clothes due to the hard glass surface, but he was hardly moving faster than a brisk speed-walk for it to feel inconvenient, giving them both time to relax and brace for what might come next. An appropriate time to ponder deeply, too, about what the hell had just happened in the hour preceding.

Beef still just couldn't comprehend why that beastly stan of his was so obsessed with writing this fanfiction, and so intricately, too. It left his mind scrambling for an answer, anything at all, and though it wasn't what he had hoped to conclude with, Beef could vaguely understand Rev's true, hidden motivator: clout. All of this was clearly a stunt, an elaborate bit designed to place mockery to the names of their favorite creators, in hopes they might revolt and cringe and twist their faces in disgust, baffled at how someone could ever find proper reasoning to write a story about furries this intricately.

God damn those furries.

Though, the longer he stepped through the thick forest, pushing past brushes of foliage and ducking under low-hanging tree branches, the more dense and winding the forest became, shades by so many trees that hardly any rain slipped past their umbrella of leaves. Both remained mostly silent throughout the entire walk, leaving them to trust their newfound animal senses to lead them onward, ignoring the disorienting mix of new smells and sounds any human wouldn't be able to normally hear on their own. It was only now that Beef realized the tracks he had been following were leading in a huge circle around a clump of tall trees, implying that Rev hadn't run much farther from here, or was clever enough to disorient them both into walking in a circle when Rev could be much farther away in actuality.

That is, until Rev's thick, gravely voice spoke up from directly behind them, tone calm and calculated, as if hoping to not startle Beef too abruptly. "So... it's come to this..."