Velveteen, Corduroy , and Buttons

[Kitti]

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"Shhh" Cashmere whispered, her voice only barely qualifying as hushed with how loud she shushed the others around her. Smirking, she watched as a young boy entered the beat-up toy store, his mother standing outside with a skeptical look on her face. She counted down for the others, it was such a joy being able to do this, and then the door closed. The young boy stepped towards the stuffed animals lining the shelves, predictably.

Suddenly, each and every one of the toys sprang to life, shielded from his mother's view by the display in the front window and the body of the young boy. The lead, Cashmere, was first. Her teddy leapt off the shelf and stomped towards him, followed by a sateen kitten. Cashmere chortled as the little boy screamed and fumbled for the door.

At the sound of the scream, the store owner came from the back room and looked around, perplexed. The little toys sitting on the floor smiled beatifically up to her. It was the most maddening thing, she thought, two weeks and not a single customer. Her grandmother's shop had once been bustling with people.

It was so hard for her to tell what had changed, the only thing she'd really altered was the random little wooden box in the corner of the back room that had been caked with incense and flowers.

Meanwhile, the ghosts had settled back into what they had decided to do, now that the old woman had died and the bratty girl had stopped paying respects to the ghosts - they would run her out of business by taking over the cherished stuffed animals they had loved as children. They had respected the old woman, she had known that these stuffed toys should never be for sale. The girl did not seem so intelligent.
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[Hydronine]

A small plush of a tiger cub fell off the shelf right as the pea-brained girl had appeared in the room. Stripes had been waiting for the perfect moment to charge off the shelf, but had been a moment too late, though it's little soft paws couldn't keep it on the shelf. Its eyes gleamed as it spotted the boy still running down the street, his mother following after him. She, like many other ghosts under the lead of Cashmere, were following her lead in wanting to run this babbling idiot of a girl out of business. That old woman had been kind in paying respects to them, being precise and never forgetting to prepare incense or flowers. Now the shop only smelled like fabreeze, which that brat had INSISTED ON SPRAYING EVERYTHING WITH. Every stuffed animal, every speck of air. Not a SINGLE trace of the incense had been left in the air. What's more, had she not heard her grandmother telling all the children that the toys weren't for sale? They were allowed to play with the stuffed animals, nothing more than that. Things had changed now. They all felt disrespected, and what else could they do?

 

[Slyen]

"Must we keep doing this Cashmere? Could we just explain the situation to the girl? I am sure she would understand..." a muffled voice asked once they were all back on the shelf in place and the girl had disapeared from view. The voice belonged to one of the older and more abused toys, a knitted bunny with a chipped eye and an ear that had been caught in the mouth of a cat once upon a time. Regardless of that Bauffle had always been of the timid sort and one of, if not the only, one against Cashmere's plan.

 

[Kitti]

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"She's just an air-headed little girl" Cashmere chided, watching the granddaughter of the previous owner make a face at the door. The old woman had found these toys laying around this building, what had once been an orphanage before the great fire, and she had picked them up carefully. With gentle hands, not so old yet, she had dusted off the ash from the teddy bear and taken all the animals back with her to be cleaned. The old woman had turned the ruins of the orphanage into a toy shop, where little boys and girls could purchase train set and dollies, books and blocks. The toys, however, that she had rescued from the fire were never for sale, only to be played with by the children.

Now, the girl in charge had ruined everything. The ghosts did NOT want to be separated from one another, or the toys that had been their one and only possession in the orphanage. That left them not option but to not be sold. Cashmere did not place much faith in the girl listening to the ghosts of little children, she doubted that the girl would even listen hard enough to hear them.

"Do you want to be all alone in some kid's house, Bauffle?" she asked him, less a look of anger on her face and more one of hopelessness as she patted Stripes. "She'll just sell us if we stop."
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[Hydronine]

"It's true!" Stripes exclaimed, sounding forlorn. "This is all we can do... I don't like it any more than the rest of you... but I don't want to be sold!" She continued, leaning against Cashmere. "Remember how the first day that brat came in, she put a big sign up and everything! She spent all day looking for our PRICE TAGS!" Stripes wailed.

"What if she finds a way to sell us anyways?" She sniffled before going still for a moment as the girl came around again.

As she left again, Stripes turned to Bauffle before batting him onto the floor. "I am NOT leaving this shop!" Stripes stated loudly, with no question in her voice. She wasn't going anywhere!