About

Every child has that one toy they long for more than any other. For some, it’s a particular action figure, for others, a video game. Once upon a time, a little girl dreamed of a very specific plushie. This particular line she begged her mother for mirrored classic monsters, and the very best, she thought, was the chaser design.

Iah remembers when his girl opened the parcel on christmas morning, how she screamed with delight. Her mother didn’t understand why her daughter would want a… what was he, precisely? Some kind of dog…? Was it dead?
“Greg, why would you buy her a dead dog?”
“It’s a mummy, Mama! They’re really rare!”
“Come on, Gloria - it’s what she asked for.”
“It’s weird!
“I love him!! Thank you, Uncle Greg!”

Iah and his girl were inseparable, never mind that he was fully half her size and she tended to trip on his bandaged feet. She told him stories she made up on the spot and everything her teachers taught her. Her mother tried to give her fashion dolls and pink teddies, but Iah and his girl didn’t want tea parties, they wanted adventure!

Finally, it was time to move, as most families eventually do. To keep Iah safe, his girl packed him into a box with her other faux-ancient treasures - it wouldn’t do to have him bouncing loose in the truck, after all, and her mother said there was no room in the car with them. Iah was content to wait as the box was sealed and packed into the moving van.

“This one’s just junk, you can take it.”
“Sure you don’t wanna open it and check?”
“I’m sure, go ahead.”

Iah felt his box lift, then soar, then drop, then tumble. Over and over it fell, until it lay still. Broken treasures lay in pieces around him in the dark, and the air was suddenly cold, not climate-controlled like the truck. He heard seagulls and distant machines… from time to time, something scurried over the box, nibbled at it, then ran.
He was alone for so long, in the dark with all the broken treasures. Where was he? Where was his girl? Why had no one come to unpack him and return him to her? It was impossible to tell how much time was passing. It grew colder and colder, and sometimes it rained. Sometimes he heard thunder. Sometimes it was just the birds and machines.

Finally, change. Even his waxed cardboard prison couldn’t withstand that much exposure, and it broke apart one icy day in December. For the second time in his life, his box was opened on a winter morning, but this time there was no shriek of joy or warmth or colourful lights. This time there was only falling snow and frigid cold under a flat grey sky. Seagulls swooped low over mountains of stinking, abandoned plastic and rot to investigate and peck at him.
What little hope he had clung to for so long broke.

He truly woke in that moment, blind to the magic of his transformation as he curled into himself and wept.
Finally able to move on his own, he gathered the remains of his girl’s treasures and slunk out into the world, stealing what he needed and staying away from human populations as much as possible. In time, he began to integrate himself into society, but not in any particularly healthy way: he had no real life experience and his hurt was too fresh to consider new connections, so he turned to stealing. To keep under the radar, he has thus far kept his theft petty and minor, but he sees the wealth accumulated at the top of the food chain and has begun to mull over how much he could take before the rich would miss it. How far could he go before they caught him? How far before someone actually cared?

Trivia

• Formerly a chaser design from a collectable plush line, Iah’s tail zipper is spiralled rather than straight, allowing him to unravel his entire tail
• He keeps his girl’s broken treasures in his pockets: a cheap enamel scarab amulet necklace with a broken chain and a cracked gem, an empty trinket box with a cracked hinge, a torn scrap of papyrus with her name in fudged hieroglyphics, and a water-damaged children’s mythology book.
• Being new to such novel tasks as eating, Iah has become a bit of a foodie. He particularly enjoys steak, but that shouldn’t be too surprising for a jackal.
• Has an ear for music and is teaching himself to sing in his downtime, though he isn’t keen on letting other people hear.