The story is broken up into eight differing sub-stories all involving a series of living puppets known as Vendemiaire (which is also the name of each). These stories all have a similar formula involving a Vendemiaire puppet encountering a boy or man that tries to help them with varying levels of success, usually trying to attain freedom for them. Overall these stories are somber and explore different contrasting opinions of human nature and how people use the Vendemiaire like slaves or worse.