User:Reversedragon/UTDR/pointed-tail/2

Dess

Our story begins in a small northeastern town named Hometown... or at least it would if a certain family of icy deer-people were honest with themselves. All the way over in a satellite city named Furtherville, one December Holiday has quietly escaped the dreary clutches of Hometown in order to see the world one suburban mess at a time. She is at least thirteen years old — small enough that her absence might bring some concern, but old enough to have turned notably rebellious and become a pain. Usually known as "Dess", she has always been drawn to sports, danger, and loud ways of expressing herself, never to be confined by any particular box of what anyone else takes "woman" or "girl" to be.

As Dess wanders through Furtherville, she stumbles onto a particularly strange human child crouching at the edge of a wooded area eating moss (Kris). This child has an unnatural way of moving, shuffling or shambling from place to place such that when they stand on any particular spot half the time they seem to be standing at an oblique angle to reality. She has never seen anything alive that looked more like a cryptid.

Undeterred, Dess steps out into the light. At the sight of a big assertive shadow with antlers towering out of the bushes from who knows where, the cryptid child jumps.

Dess: Ooh. Afraid of me, huh. [raises hands and makes grizzly claws] Yes, I'm a Monster, we eat human Souls. [Kris tilts their head upward, definitely not scared now, but intrigued.] Dess: [arms deflate to sides; impressed] Oh. You're a tough one, aren't you. Dess: I have some money. You want a pizza? [Kris perks up.]

Dess has brought the mysterious cryptid child to eat some pizza, which they gobble down, when she gets a call from her mother asking where on earth she is. Dess: Everything's fine, mom. I _am_ getting pizza, just like I said. Dess: But uh... I found this weird homeless human. So... can you come pick us up in Furtherville? I know this kid just needs a home. I'm fine. [frowns] ...What I worry about is whether they are.

[... unfinished]

=>: deltashard1 RedactedTale/ basic concept
;
:: cr.: 2025-10-24T16:39:11H
:: t.: 2972_pointed-tail2
;: REDACTEDtale/ narrative of how Dess disappeared, based on "bad-memory" theory