[TOY WORLDBUILD] Toy Worldbuild Oneshots

[molasses]

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Tandy's Delivery - 2021
Molasses, Unnamed Toy Worldbuild
CW: physical violence, toy gore, death, confusion/distress

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Beneath a buzzing streetlamp, an angular figure leans stiffly against the wall. A plastic rendition of a fantastical humanoid war machine, all sharp edges and mechanical greebling. Birdlike head tilted down, the shade hides the expression on his scuffed fluorescent visor. But the irony of a fearful weapon remains drily apparent in his posture.

A distant rattling. He jolts, stumbling into a more sturdy standing pose. The rattling continues in rhythm, surely heralding the approach of someone taller and stronger than him. He fixes his gaze on the dark alleyway, trying to judge the distance. Something seems off… if it’s as close as it seems then surely the clunking plastic feet of a large mech would be audible? The pace of the rattling suddenly quickens, leaving him no time to think. A black shape lunges out of the shadows. Arms crossed defensively in front of his visor, he braces for impact.

A climactic rattle is accompanied with a dull thud. The expected impact doesn’t arrive. The bird mech cautiously draws his arms away from his face, residual tension stifling a confused sputter of laughter. Just over an arms length away, some sort of cloth cat doll was sprawled out face down on the ground. Strapped to their side is a plastic extending grabber toy, with a transparent handle full of colourful candy pellets; the source of the rattling.

“Uhh…” Before the mech can think of anything to say, the cat doll clambers to their feet and dusts themself off, mumbling something about how silly they are. They smile dreamily into space for a moment, before clearing their throat.
“Hello, I’m Tandy.” A soft and whimsical voice, as if humming on an afternoon stroll.
They tilt their head and stoop a little to study the mech’s expression.
“I’m terribly sorry about my clumsy entrance, I seem to have given you quite a scare.”

Tandy looked something like an eccentric guest at a Victorian tea party; their pale face framed by long dark ears and tufts, inked eyelids drooping along with their white neck ruffle.
“I’m Tandy Cat,” they repeat expectantly, breaking a long silence.
The mech had been opening and closing his beak, words failing him. He sighs.
“Look, uhh, I don’t know what you’re doing here but you need to leave. I’m waiting for someone.” He taps the long gnarled handle of a plastic sword on his back.
“It’s your lucky day,” he scoffs, with a grin.
The end of the handle is fashioned into a crude seam ripper.

Tandy smiles, seemingly oblivious.
“No no, I do believe I’m here to see you, Mr. … ?” They extend a paw; a featureless pale nub, like a glove on their dark arm.
“Oh yeah? Listen, I’m not in the kind of business where we share names.” The mech tilts his head back as he speaks, in an attempt to look down on the taller cat doll.
Tandy continues to smile in silence, giving a nod to their still outstretched paw.

The mech looks around anxiously, and sighs once more. He takes the paw in his hard plastic hand. It’s a little rougher than he expected.
“Well, never mind names.” Tandy closes their eyes and beams. “It’s nice to meet you, all the same.”
The mech gives them a tired stare in return.
“Okay, you need to go. Whoever they sent for me, you don’t wanna be here when they arrive.”
The smile stays on Tandy’s face like permanent marker. Though something in their half-opened eyes seems to smudge it.
“Yes yes, the boss said you needed a little chat.”



Aquarius broke the handshake and jumped back. Assuming a defensive stance with one hand on his sword, he scanned the darkness of the alleyway for movement. The blurry figure of Tandy crossed over his vision as he turned his head back and forth. 
“You’re… alone?” He refocused on Tandy, noting a bundle of fabric on the side of their belt.
“Just me, yes”. They tilted their head a little, smile drooping for the first time. “Did I do something to scare you again?”

An incredulous laugh dissolved Aquarius’ stance, becoming more cruel as it continued.
“They really sent a fucking softie?” He chuckled, taking a few aimless steps off to the side. “Guess I got myself all worked up for nothing.”
He turned back to Tandy with a grim expression, streetlight accenting the sharp edges of his armour. The cat doll seemed more pathetic by the second.
“U-um, I… uh,” Tandy stuttered, shrinking back and looking down at their feet.

“So you’re one of those newbies who think’s they’re fuckin’ invincible, huh?” Aquarius’ serrated beak clacked together.
“Trying to play some fucking mind games? I’ll admit you had me for a-”

“A-actually I’ve been picking apples for quite some time!” Tandy piped up.

Aquarius ignored them.
“You fight with that thing?” He nodded to Tandy’s flimsy plastic grabber, before half-drawing his beaten-up sword. “You should at least get it reinforced. Not that it matters now.”
He moved his arm to let the light shine off a crude metal plate on the back of the blade. The cutting edge was thin and scratched from repeated sharpening.

Tandy was staring into space, swaying slightly.
“It… my grabber helps me reach the apples… when they’re too high up…” They mumbled.

“...Apples?” Aquarius paused for a moment, wondering quite what was the point of Tandy’s lost child act.
“Whatever, I'm not playing along any more. We both know why you’re here.” He gave a short, dry chuckle.
“Should’ve tried your luck when we shook hands.”


After a moment of thought, something clicks in Tandy’s head. Their eyes widen and they stifle a giggle. They look over at the bird mech with an expression of tender pity.
“Oh, oh dear, no, I do apologise. There has been a misunderstanding.” They put one paw up against their mouth and lower their tone. “I’m afraid you’re not my type.”


In one heavy motion, Aquarius lunged forward, fully drawing his sword from behind his back and up across Tandy’s chest. He held still for a moment, wisps of cotton fluttering on the edge of his blade, before rearing up on one foot to kick the staggering cat doll in the middle of their fresh wound. They tumbled away, settling face-down. Aquarius slowly lowered his foot, grinning at the snow-like trail of stuffing floating to the ground.

“Done fucking around?”

Tandy made a weak attempt to push themself up, but flopped to the ground almost immediately.
Aquarius began to pace back and forth.
“You obviously ain’t a smart one, so let me explain. I thought they were planning to get rid of me, but since they sent you…” He waved his free hand at the crumbled cat doll, grimacing.
“Well, let’s just say the big guys are giving me a second chance.”

Unintelligible grumbling and cursing began to emanate from the pile of cloth and stuffing. It slowly and shakily brought itself to a kneeling position, and took a firm grip of the grabber on its side.

Aquarius looked down at it with a grin.
“Finally come to your senses huh? Well,” he assumed an exaggerated dramatic tone, “As a reward for showing your fighting spirit, I’ll tell you my name after all.”
The gruff sigh he received in response surprised him somewhat. He made a face and dropped any playfulness in his voice.
“It’s Aquarius. If you hadn’t noticed, I‘m kind of a specialist in your type.” He spat the last word. “Hold still and I’ll make it quick.”

The cat thing continued to rise laboriously to its feet, still facing away.
“Ooooh, yeah, I’m Tandy.” The raspy voice had a bitter tone, as if mocking someone.
“I’m… Tandy fucking cat! I’m a… funny doll who likes apples and… romance novels!”

“Huh.” Aquarius hadn’t seen one this far gone before.
“Uh… you got a screw loose? A thread?” He rolled his eyes, laughing quietly at his own joke.
His feet rose off the ground. The seam ripper sword clattered to the ground as he instinctively clutched at his throat.

The grabber was on his neck, the flimsy plastic bowing and creaking. Desperately pulling at the joints, he strained to look down its length at the thing he had thought was his prey.

One arm. Though it was shaking heavily, this bundle of rags was holding him aloft with a single arm. How was it even using this grabber with its shitty nub hands? His vision darted to its face.

A face that was only identifiable as such from its situation on the front of a head. The ink seemed to boil and bubble, warping the pale piece of fabric.

Aquarius was immediately overcome with a feeling worse than just choking. He started thrashing in the air.

The turbulent marbling of the cat thing’s face gave way to a mouth, jagged like the opening of a cave.
It coughed up its words like hairballs.
“Wouldn’t life… be easier… if we just followed the fucking SCRIPT… for once? Shit happens… how it’s supposed to… no matter what.”
It stuffed it’s free paw into the wound on its chest. The mech scraped helplessly along the floor as the cat thing staggered around, keeping its grip despite all odds. Its face swirled aggressively from the pain and exertion.

“Why won’t you stop… getting in the way?”
It tore the paw out in a puff of stuffing and stared at it in disgust.

The grabber opened up and retracted a little. Aquarius pulled it off his neck with a gasp, and scrambled towards his sword. Just as his fingers brushed the hilt, he gagged like a dog on a short chain. The vice grip of the flimsy plastic grabber pulled him back up to eye level. 

A single eye had appeared off-center on the cat thing’s face. It looked tired.
The mouth continued as if nothing had happened.
“That… goes for you… too. Only one of us came here to die”

Aquarius’ senses were dulling. He could barely feel his fists as he pounded them against the thin plastic junk that was choking him out. Why wasn’t it breaking? Why wasn’t it breaking?

The cat thing had dropped to one knee, its whole body heaving and shaking, using both paws to keep hold of the candy-filled handle. It whimpered.
“F-fine. Just… make it harder for both of us… then.”
With a screaming grunt, it wrenched the bird mech into the air, and, in a smooth arc, smashed his head into the ground.

…

Predawn paints the sky a gradient of dark down to light. A buzzing streetlamp packs it in for the night, leaving an airy silence.
There are two toys here.

A plastic mech, lying neatly on folded cloth. Like the effigy of a forgotten king; weathered and broken, a sword lying on his chest. Countless blows to his head have rendered it unrecognisable.

An old cloth cat doll, kneeling at the head of the body. Motionless, an anonymous grieving angel sculpture. Its hollow features droop like a funeral veil.

A light fog softens the image of the two inanimate objects, framing it as the tiny graveyard of a mountain church.

…


Tandy walked slowly down the street, humming a meandering tune. It was a sunny morning, perfect for a stroll. Here and there were the sounds of a window opening, a few words exchanged, a cough; a freeform composition of people starting their day.

Hmm, time for another break. They slowly set down the big heavy sack slung over their shoulder, and kneel for a minute to catch their breath.

How nice everything looked in the daylight. Tandy would have liked to go apple-picking in the daytime, but all the new trees appearing overnight would already be found by then.
Tandy also had a hard time being in busy places. 

A couple of early birds passed by, giving Tandy an odd look. The cat doll rubbed their brow with a paw, wincing a little. No no, you shouldn’t worry. They probably didn’t mean anything by it. You are quite a sight after all; picking apples is tough work, and you haven’t had time to wash yet.

Tandy got back on their feet with a light sigh, and continued toward a nondescript old industrial building just coming into view.

…

A novelty clock in the general shape of a penguin sat at his desk. A digital representation of the current time glowed through the buttoned front of his white lab coat, flicking between 12 and 24 hour time - a nervous tic.

He was a doctor. Well, perhaps not officially, but that was his work nonetheless. The room reflected in his simple chrome eyes and beak; a fairly typical doctors office, albeit set out in quite a large and dingy room. He’d done what he could with the place, installing curtains to separate out the space and dampen the echoes. He preferred to keep visitors in the examination room area where he currently sat, so as not to show them anything they didn’t need to see.

A sudden thump on the door caused the doctor's alarm to go off. He managed to stop his panicked beeping just in time to see a big cat doll stumble through the doorway. They lumbered over to the wall opposite him and carefully propped the huge sack they were carrying against the wall, gasping as they finally released it.

“Here,” they wheezed, “Are the apples you ordered, Doc.”

“Ah! Tandy, yes. Bright and early as ever, hmm? How was the-” He jumped in his seat.
“My word, Tandy, are you alright?”

Having gently closed the door, the cat doll had turned to face him, now standing at their full height. The tips of their ears squashed against the ceiling as they twisted their shoulders back and forth to stretch. They tilted their head at the question, smiling their sleepy smile. Then they looked down at their chest. A long diagonal tear across their pale belly patch, was barely held together by a couple of safety pins.
“Oh… I think I got caught on a branch.” They stare into space for a moment.
“Sorry to startle you, Doc.”

Tandy was almost twice the height of the penguin. The reflection of the wound bulged in the mirrored surface of his eyes.
“A branch…” He shook his head and tried to get back on track. “Hm, yes, well... I would treat you here but, as you know, soft bodies like your own are not my specialty.” He glanced over at the sack.
“I have neither the equipment nor training to operate confidently, so…”

Tandy was staring unfocused at a smudge on the ceiling.

“Tandy?” He spoke up a little, trying to make sure they were listening. They moved only their pupils to look down at him in his chair. A brief twinge of pain narrowed their eyes.

”Promise me you’ll visit a proper hospital, won’t you?” The penguin clasped his flippers together in front of him.

Tandy nodded quite vigorously, ears flopping and brushing the ceiling.
“Yes yes, you pay me quite well for just apples, Doc.” They let out a little giggle. “I thought one a day was supposed to keep you away!”

The doctor coughed back a laugh.
“Well, no I-” He started. “Our superiors-” He thought better of it.
There was no use in fretting about technicalities.
“Apples, yes…”
He worried for Tandy, but getting too involved could put them both in danger.

Tandy was rocking from one foot to the other, off in their own world again.
“Maybe I can even get my dye fixed this time…” They waved a paw at the doctor. It seemed to have some kind of dark marking on it, a letter or symbol.
“They said they couldn’t get it off before.”

He started to peer over to get a better look, but stopped himself.
“Well, it's been lovely to see you again Tandy but time is getting on, I think you’d better be going now.”

Tandy dropped their shoulders and made a little humming sigh. They walked over and opened the door, smiling back at the penguin before leaving without a word.

“Hm.” The penguin got up to close the door. He watched Tandy walk through the gate, flipping his chest clock between 12 hour and 24 hour mode.
“To the hospital, yes?” He called after them.
They just did a little spin in the street.

He sighed heavily and closed the door.
The sack against the wall had slipped down a bit. A sharp plastic edge poked out of the top.