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Tinker Toy, a bright three floored building in the middle of a dingy city. The city is dirty and underclass, but those who live there like to think it's cleaner then other cities. Tink Toy in right in the middle of the darkest neighborhood and claims to have toys for all ages. They also take in unwanted or broken toys.

Trey Turner, or Tick as many call him, opened the shop only four years ago. With his assisstant and the help of some other friends.

The first floor is the normal Toy Shop. Filled with all types of toys and building kits. But this story focusses more on the other two floors. Floor two is a boarding house for the unwanted toy. From cursed dolls to aware teddy bears any toy that comes to the shop from another place is given a humanoid form and allowed to live on the seccond floor. Obviously this boarding house has many rooms that seem to somehow be enchanted to remain only on that floor.

The third floor is off limits, it's where Tick lives and no one else is allowed up there without his permission.

This story follows the lives of the toys and Tick while they run the shop, face the world of humans, and discover what it means to be alive...

X T R E Y
X X X T U R N E R
X X T I C K

Morning had long since passed. And Lunch time was gone as well. The shop was open, but the assisstant was running it currently. Tinker Toy was a 24 hour shop, open everyday except for saturdays and sundays. Even on holidays they kept the store open. The people who worked and lived there were normally smiling and it was a well known store.

Of course not only was the store well known, but the owner was as well. Many people said he was a very wacky person, though not in attitude. His hair shifted color depending on his mood or what he was doing. Per example, currently the man was snuggled under the large comforter and burried under stuffed animals. The only sign he was still asleep in his room was the fact that a bright purple mop of hair was visible.

Tick was normally one who slept in until six thirty in the afternoon. Which at that time his alarm would go off and one of the toys who lived on the second levle would normally come to make sure he was awake. Of course Tick wasn't a big "morning" person, and there were other's who slept in just as long as him. So it was normal that the man would have his alarm clock set on high volume.

When the digital numbers changed, the incessent beeping began and kept going.

Trillian poked her head into the bedroom and searched the pile of animals and blankets for the familiar mop of purple. Yep, still asleep. Trill herself rarely slept for long. She was a hummingbird toy whose springs had broken. She had sat on a shelf for years until one day her humans took her down, dusted her off, and gave her away. Tinker Toy had been her refuge ever since.

Swinging the door fully open, she walked inside and moved to stand near the pile. She cracked open the lid on the thermos she had been holding and fanned the smell of fresh coffee towards the mountain of fabric. Replacing the lid she set the container on the floor where Tick would have to get up to get it. She waited to see if that would gain any response, but her only answer was the persistent beeping of the alarm clock.

Sighing dramatically, she hopped up on the bed and sat on her heels near Tick's head. Even in human form Trill was unusually light and barely disturbed the springs of the bed. She tapped Tick on his head lightly speaking in a singsong voice, "Tick, Tock, Alarm Clock! Early Birdie gets the Wormy..." Still no response. Trill stood to her full height and pointed a finger down at him in a serious manner. "I hereby issue the final warning! You have ten seconds before I take things into my own hands! Beware, Mortal!"

Trill hopped down from the bed and counted backwards from ten. When she reached zero she thew off the covers and dove away. Grabbing the thermos of coffee, she held it up like an offering to an angry God. "Forgive this little bird! She brings sweet nectar to revive You!" Trill peeked up to see if anything had stirred the Tinker Toy owner from his sleep.

X T R E Y
X X X T U R N E R
X X T I C K

The efforts of the humming bird girl were mostly in vain. She tried many things, and though Tick's nose twitched when the coffee was wafted towards him, and he sunk even lower when she tapped his head, and he grumbled when she offered a final warning, he still didn't stir to wake up. Tick was never easy to awaken and he was mostly dead to the world.

However, the covers came off and he curled into a ball cussing under his breath. "It's so ******** cold, god damn where's my blanket..." He opened one bright magenta eye as his hand failed at finding the large comforter. He grumbled and sat up his hair shifting to a confused mix of bright green and red. Yawning he smacked the alarm clock and then rubbed his forehead, grumbling even louder before proclaiming.

Looking towards the form of the person who woke him up he sighed heavily. Swinging his feet over the edge of the bed he reached over to take the offering of hot coffee. His half lidded eyes dull and misted from sleep. The thermos read in bright letter, "Have a ******** nice day." against the dark exterior. Taking a large gulp he looked down at the humming bird. "Morning Trill..." He reached over to a jar of candy, among many; and handed her a hand full of gummy worms. A little bit of a joke.

Many of the -toys- weren't the best at cooking. They'd never had the need to before comming to Tinker Toy. Of course that meant almost all of them, but Tick wasn't the best at cooking either and he slept too late. Luckily for them, there was Muuyo. He was a jack-in-th-box originally, but he'd been found by tick before the shop even opened. Once he was fixed up, it turned out he was rather good at chores. He was an antique toy, and had watched many humans go about their rutines. He even remembered it all. So he was more then happy to help out around the second floor.

Muuyo couldn't really go to the first floor when the shop was catering to the younger clients. However after about eleven at night he would sometimes go down there. He wasn't the most....cheerful looking of toys. Being almost seven feet tall with sharp teeth kinda scared the kids.

At this time he was finishing up what was repectively breakfast for most of the people living there. With the little zombie rabbit sitting there talking to her match Muuyo was quiet. Just as a jack-in-the-box should be. Though he did start humming as he cooked. Stopping when Trillian came rushing in. Muuyo was an awkward humanoid as it were. He didn't seem to have legs or feet, just the long red fabric that he slid from one place to another. If he did have feet he just didn't use or show them. But then again he was just a toy.

If possible the large toothy grin got a little wider as Trill babbled on. He bowed to her a good morning. Then returned to his work. "I'm sure you could ask Rag'Marie, she's been in the store since before dawn."

Hold your head up high, XXXThey would kill to see you fail
Evil lurks in the shadows just waiting to prevail.
Every sinner has a future, XXXEvery saint has a past.
Gonna keep the torch burning so the message will last.

"Lluvia! Oiy! Watch your step, we wouldn't want you to fall!"
One of the twins called to the other. The one called Lluvia was carrying a large box filled with new toys to go to the shop. The two boys were on their way up from the basement storage.
"I know Arco, I know."
Arco was walking behind his brother with a playful grin on his face.

The two were identical with perfect skin, short black hair, stunning blue-green eyes, and porcelian colored skin. They were dressed slightly reversed from eachother. Lluvia was wearing a white jacket and white pants with a light sea green shirt. Arco was wearing a dark teal jacket and pants with a white shirt. The two were fairly handsome, but then again the fact they were once china dolls could very well be the reason for their flawless appearance. Trey, better known as Tick among the toys; had found them in a old case just a few years ago. He'd fixed them up to where they looked brand new, and then for some reason like many others they became human. Or at least what seemed to be human.

They didn't understand it anymore then anyone else.

Lluvia got to the top of the stairs and moved to the side so his brother could stand next to him. They took the boxes to the counter and set them down.

"Hiya Rag'Marie!"
"Here's those boxes you asked for!"
"Is there anything else ya need?"
The two spoke in sequence, perfectly. One after the other as they looked at the patchwork girl with eager eyes. They both knew Muuyo was upstairs cooking, and though they liked to help out in the storel they hadn't had breakfast yet. They'd woken up only a few hours before. Like many of the toys, they slept late. Rag'Marie seemed to be the only one who was awake, though she'd always been awake for long periods of time. Sometimes the twins wondered if she slept at all.

When Muuyo mentioned that Trill could just ask Rag'Marie her brain clicked into gear. It was a brilliant idea really. She wasn't surprised that it Muuyo thought of it first. Muuyo was really, really, smart, so of course he had brilliant ideas. She gobbled up the last of the gummy worms and ran around the counter to hug the jack-in-the-box. "Thank you, Muuyo! I'll be back for breakfast!"

She once again careened down the hallways to the stairs but slowed down as she reached them. There were customers down there, and she had to be on her best behavior if she wanted to get a picture book from Rag'Marie. She did her best impression of a stern voice. "Now now, Trill. The customers don't appreciate getting bumped into or things knocked over, so no running." She saluted her imaginary drill master and marched lightly down the stairs.

Finding that she rather liked the idea of being a soldier, she marched herself right up to the counter and saluted her rag doll commander and the two china doll captains. If Trill had one strength, it was a vivid imagination. "Sergeant Trillian, reporting for picture books...I mean duty, Sir! I mean Ma'am! I mean Sirs and Ma'am! Sir!"

Muse woke up, the papers in front of his face filled with incoherent blurs of black and blue ink before resolving into clear lines. It must have been the alarm clock, he thought blearily, working to pull his mind from the dark of sleep. A couple notebooks filled with both prose and poetry scrawled upon the pages sat before him, all from the same hand. He rotated his head, trying to get the stiffness out of his neck; it might have been that he was cold, or that he had just spent several hours asleep with his head propped on his hand.

Muse was in most senses of the word, not a ‘toy’, but a model; he was something that was to be made and displayed. He had been simple armored soldier, whom had sat on the desk of his keeper, a silent sentinel of the young person’s mind. The child to whom he had belonged had several emotional disorders that made him, to most people’s eyes, unstable. Muse had stood and watched as the young person had tried regularly to put the chaos of their mind to rest by exorcising the cacophony of thought onto paper. Unfortunately the incessant whispers of the child’s internal monologue eventually drove the young person to a final response, just to be rid of them.

Muse had stood on the young person’s desk through the maelstrom of things that had happened in the wake of his keeper’s action. The parents eventually had packed him, along with a good number of the notebooks that the young person had filled, into a box. It was still a question whether the box had been intentionally thrown out or if it had been mistaken for another. Either way, through the rough handling of the box Muse had been broken into several pieces. Tick had found him and put him back together, for the most part. The side that Tick had never “Fixed” was the imprint of emotion that the young person had left on Muse, along with the desire to understand the mind.

“To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,” He recited dryly, trying to wake himself up. ”In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock,” Rubbing at his neck, trying to get some more warmth into it, he stood up, blinking blearily. “Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,” He sighed, thinking that walking around the second floor a bit would allow him to get rid of some of the stiffness, and he could probably grab something warm from the kitchen to assist. “From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block.” In some ways he hoped there would be people around, and another part of him hoped the opposite.