So I have gotten enough support to make this story a thing now. This took a lot of work to do so don't expect chapters to come rapidly. Still I hope you enjoy this beginning. Stay safe and Enjoy. Also I will shoutout MadnessJones for her help and encouragement to make this story.

"Steady now, Antia. You're doing great. Lower the engine speed now."

Antia C Space was heading right for a pretty purple planet. She had always wanted to visit it and she had finally gotten her chance to fly there.

Antia was doing a fine job, too. It had been a perfect flight all the way over, and her commander back in Toon HQ was calmly guiding her through a standard landing.

"Heads up Antia, looks like there's someone coming up behind you," He advised, though he didn't sound too worried about it so she eagerly tried to look behind her ship.

What could it be? A cool space rock? A space cog battle? Maybe another Toon had flown here too! The options were endless for her.

She looked at her small monitor to see if she could tell what it was, but weirdly there was a time on it instead. She couldn't make out what time it was, but it suddenly started beeping at her.

She was dumbfounded, when did she install an alarm on her ship?

...

Princess Chloe CloudyClark woke up from that dream to her alarm. She sighed in irritation at the device simply doing its job at waking her. She somewhat smacked it with her paw to make it stop and then rolled onto her back to stare up the ceiling.

Such a shame she could not get to sit in her dream world all day. However being a mother of two little trouble makers required her to keep her eyes open. Sure they were only 6 and 8, but she certainly wished they would be a little more mature to go out and play with their friends, rather than make messes in the kitchen and break vases by playing ball in the house. It didn't help that she was the only adult toon that lived there too.

She always loved her dreams of space exploration. Oh, how she loved watching Antia fly past the stars on her spaceship. That was typically one of her favorite dreamscapes. It was a beautiful light blue star, far bigger than she expected, but completely harmless to her and her little ship...and now Antia was gonna land at a new planet.

After another few minutes of ceiling staring, she rolled herself out of bed and grabbed her notebook, quickly jotting down her dream. She had a weird ability to remember her dreams for quite a while but she always wrote them down because she didn't want to forget them. This also gave her major help with her job.

She wrote the comic section for the Toon News For The Amused. Toons absolutely loved the comic strips she came up with, from epic cog battles to winning challenging competitions to flying through space. As such, she made a healthy amount of jellybeans to support her two kids and herself, though she always wanted to live modestly.

Everything about her lifestyle did in fact say modest for the most part. She only had one fancy dress which she would wear to weddings and other important things, and one business casual outfit for when she went into the Newspaper Office. Everything else was very colorful, casual, and Toony. Even her kart was more on the modest end, choosing the SUV over the formula car.

A lot of her earnings went to donations and charities, and as such she was also a bit of a figure to toons thanks to her kindness and selfless actions. That made her happy, to know how much toons liked her as a person rather than just "the toon who writes comics."

Yet there was another group, hidden from toons, that she donated to.

There was a knock on her front door downstairs and she could hear her two kids make a beeline for it, laughing and shouting all the way. She changed into something a little more presentable, a pink shirt and purple skirt with some yellow flowers all over it, and then headed for the door with her two kids bouncing up and down.

"Dilly, Dally, calm down. It's probably just Marilyn," Chloe chided.

Chloe gently pushed her sons to try to get them to sit still and be quiet, but both were simply too hyper to behave themselves.

"But we love Aunt Marilyn! Can we play with her this time?" Asked her older son, Dilly.

"Yeah! She never stops to play with us!" Added Dally, the younger son.

"Because she can't my darlings. She's too busy, you know?" Chloe replied, rolling her eyes.

When Chloe opened the door, on the other side stood a cog with the pinkest head of hair anyone had ever seen, as well as the biggest smile.

Normally, any toon would panic to see a cog in their neighborhood, but Chloe didn't even flinch. Instead she smiled right back at the cog and opened the door wider so her two kids could poke their head around from behind it.

Chloe knew this cog. She was just Marilyn the Mingler.

"Good morning, Miss Chloe! How are you this morning?" Marylin asked cheerfully as she extended her hand to the cat toon. Chloe took it and shook hands with her.

"Quite dandy this morning, Marilyn. I assume you're here for the weekly donation?"

"Why of course, your donations help fund the repair of damages your kind causes to our factories," Marylin replied; still maintaining that cheerful smile and tone despite talking about the destruction of her own home by Chloe's 'kind', "May I come in?"

"Of course. Move kids, I need to open the door all the way for her," Chloe instructed.

The two children hopped out of the way and bounced onto the couch, giving tons of greetings by saying "Hi" over and over and over again to Marylin. The cog simply smiled at them and gave them a few waves before Chloe came back in front of her after shutting the door, leading her into the kitchen.

"Coffee? Tea?" Chloe offered as she went into the fridge to fix herself some breakfast.

"No thank you, Miss Chloe. I had my coffee earlier this morning before I took my trip over to your residence," The Mingler claimed, holding her hand up to signal a polite 'no'.

"Well I hope you don't mind if I start my breakfast before I give your donations funding. I need something to be ready when we are done," Chloe said tiredly, followed by a well timed yawn.

"Take your time. I know I came to your place of living a tad bit earlier than normal, but I figured I would see if you were ready early," Marylin explained, pulling out her newspaper to see what was on the front page.

"Well I am sorry to disappoint you then."

"Nonsense, you're always on time for your scheduled donations. I have come to expect you to have a very diligent schedule."

If you're sure about that hehe, these two ensure that I never have a schedule... Chloe thought to herself as a smile spread across her face knowingly.

She then spoke up to the Mingler. "That's very kind of you. Allow me to get the donations then."

The Mingler nodded approvingly towards her and then focused on her paper. Unknown to Chole, there was a sale on a specific type of eyeliner Marylin was interested in, so now she had the task of picking which brand of it she desired the most.

While Marylin was absorbed in cosmetics, Chloe hopped up the stairs to her room and grabbed a rather large jar of jellybeans. The jar was so big it required both hands to hold it. Once she had gotten a secure enough grip, she heaved the awkward load along through the hallway towards the stairs.

She could hear her kids running around down there. She just hoped they didn't break anything or bug the cog. She knew they could only take so much humor before it caused harm to them.

Eventually Chloe managed to get down the stairs in one piece and waddled over to the counter, setting down the large jar with a glassy thunk and then shooed off her kids so the two adults could deal with the matter at hand.

The cog put her paper away, stood up, and began counting rather vaguely how many jellybeans were inside.

"Should be like 300 something," Chloe guesstimated with a bit of pride, and unsureness, in her voice.

"Yes, but I should count them myself to get a good number… of course I did say 'should', so close enough works for me. I'll send it to the Bean Counters later, that's their only job anyways," Marylin explained while slipping into a monotone, but Chloe was not adversely effected by the potential saddening power of Marylin's voice.

Indeed even though the toons and cogs were at war with each other for a long time now, there were small pockets on both sides that saw profit and happiness in working a little more with each other. Indeed some toons were friends with cogs and some cogs registered a toon as an associate or intern.

This wasn't necessarily a banned practice for either side, nor was it even ultra rare to find a cog/toon relationship of some sort. The large majority on both sides did not personally approve of this action, nor did they have any intention with the other side other than trying to destroy them, so speaking openly about it was not really considered acceptable. More of a 'we are looking the other way if you don't draw attention to yourself' sort of stance was taken.

Chloe though was fortunate not to be affected by a cog's monologuing habits due to her kids, her job, and her time around cogs after so many years. Plus she was home now, giving her a great happiness inside to be somewhere secure.

Once the Mingler had a good enough estimate of how many jellybeans she was given, she pocketed them and brushed off her sleeves. It always bewildered Chloe how cogs were also capable of condensing large items into a small space. Toons were always able to carry dozens of large gags at once without even being slowed by it or even having it out in sight. However toons had their cartoony reality to deal with. It made sense in a way, since they could flattened like a pancake, stretched out, or shot out of cannons for fun and still be perfectly fine. But a cog? They didn't even seem to carry anything except a few items, the rest they could just spawn at will. Like Marylin's paradigm shift or power trip. She just waved her fingers around and the spikes would appear, rolling onto the floor toward her victim.

"I would ask, but I'm sure you will be busy. Do you have anything to do Saturday? Would love to have dinner sometime. Girls' night out, ya know?" Chloe asked as the toaster dinged popping out two crispy slices of toast. She instinctively went towards her food source as she asked that.

"Afraid so. Business meeting all afternoon for marketing strategies. You know the drill," The Mingler replied, almost sounding a bit disappointed that a girls' night out wasn't gonna happen.

One time Chloe had dragged her out to do something. Marylin recalled that they called it fishing or something. It was all amusing for her, but Chloe seemed to really enjoy her company, so she then asked Chloe if she would want to do something cogs did after work?

After a nice night out on the golf courses, which revealed that Chloe was actually a very good golfer, the two tried to find time to do another activity with some more friends/associates.

"I understand. Now I think you oughta go before the rest of the neighborhood wakes up and sees a level 10 Mingler standing in their neighborhood streets," Chloe insisted.

"Indeed. I should be off then. Pleasure to meet you again, Miss Chloe. Same time next week?"

"Of course. Whenever is fine. Have a good one!" She said, taking a bite out of her toast after smearing some butter onto it.

She waved with her free hand while the cog returned her own wave, still a bit rough on how to wave. Marylin had never heard of waving before she met Chloe. Apparently it was a polite thing to do when you were leaving someone you liked so she went with it. She then looked down at the two kids and waved at them as well. "Goodbye, Mr. Dilly and Mr. Dally."

She turned towards the door and marched out with the two kids mimicking her, giggling and laughing the whole time.

"Dilly, Dally, get over here. You don't mock somebody," Chloe said sternly, and the two kids came back begrudgingly since their fun was halted.

"But she walks so funny!" Dilly exclaimed sitting at the table.

"Yes, but it's rude to make fun of cogs…or toons for that matter," Chloe explained against the whines of her children.

"But we are supposed to fight cogs! What makes Aunt Marylin so special?" Dally asked, completely unaware of the rudeness from such a question.

Chloe could only sigh. They were just too young to understand all this grownup business she was in right now. Instead she switched the topic.

"Hey, go get dressed. We gotta get you to school on time!" She said cheerfully, but Dilly and Dally both whined; hearing possibly the most hated word by a child toon.

"But I don't wanna go to school! It's boooooooring," Complained Dilly, grabbing onto Chloe's shirt.

"Yeah! There's nothing to do there or anything," Dally added.

"They give you almost 3 hours of recess, how much more do you need?" Chloe asked, looking down at them with a mix of humor and motherly dominance.

"The whole day!" Dally responded quickly.

"Now, now. You two need to learn how to defend yourselves against the bad cogs. I won't always be around to protect you two, after all. Do it for me, okay?" Chloe requested as she got on one knee to be at their height.

"Aww…oh, fine. I guess so," Dally finally sighed and turned to leave, but Chloe grabbed him and Dilly to hug them both at the same time.

"I love you boys. Now get dressed. I'll walk you to school," Chloe told them, releasing them from her grip and getting back up onto her feet.

With a wave, Chloe watched her kids walk into the schoolhouse with at least another 20 or 30 other little toons; some with parents, some by themselves.

Once they went inside, she ran off down a street called Loopy Lane. She felt lucky that the schoolhouse was so close to where her job was. That was quite the time saver for the busy mom.

Chloe eventually made it down the street and to her place of employment; Toon News for the Amused in all its lovely glory. Sometimes a cog would take it over, but she was always one to help get their building back. Luckily today was not the case, allowing her to head inside to be hounded by her head editor.

She was immediately greeted by a well fed dog in a button up white shirt and tan pants.

"Ah, if it isn't my comic writer, Chloe!" He exclaimed, sweeping her up off her feet into a big hug. This was just how Sheriff Doppler LoudCook was with his Toons (though he wasn't actually a sheriff or a real cook).

Chloe laughed a bit, remembering how not a single day had passed where he didn't do this to her, or her fellow Toons. He was just a very positive kind of guy. Of course there comes a point when there is too much kindness, and his kindness was beginning to suffocate her.

"Gah! Heh, I get it Doppler! Can I breath now?" She requested in a playful, yet pleading, tone.

Happily he got the message, like he did every other day, and set her back on her feet before fixing his shirt.

"Right right, I always forget that we need to breath eventually...eheh. Ah, anyways, how was yesterday? I saw your sketch and I have to say that was very impressive. Even the title was fantastic; 'Space Gags: Star light'. That's impressive!"

"Oh good. I got the next part of the comic in my head. Had the dream last night to continue to," Chloe explained, all the while heading to the sweets table that was available for the staff.

"I'll tell you my dear, I can't understand how you can consistently come up with these dreams to make your stories, but clearly they are very happy-inducing. Toons from playgrounds across all the districts want to read them. Gives us so many jellybeans, and more beans means more gags to fight the cogs back!" He said enthusiastically.

Doppler rambled on and on about her. She was used to this. At least today it was all positive Toony things.

"Thank you, Doppler. I'll get on it. When was it due again?" She asked as she excused herself to her room.

"Tomorrow if you can, my dear. Though we don't exactly have to have it done by then," He shrugged, indifferent to the idea of keeping a schedule.

"I'll have it done by tomorrow Doppler, don't worry about that," She said, laughing a little bit at his lax personality.

That was just who he was. He was pretty lazy, easy going, and laid back; even by toon standards. Then again, his Paper's logo was "We will always get the news to you! Eventually." She wasn't quite sure why he felt like that last part was necessary. Perhaps it was amusing to him.

"If you think so, that would be great my dear. Have fun!" He exclaimed as he headed over to another toon's desk to assist him; leaving Chloe to find her way back to her own desk.

Chloe sat down in her old chair and scooted herself up to her desk. It was originally a lovely oak brown, but as the years went by it became stained with so many pen marks, splotches of paint, crayon, markers, and marks, scratches, and dents from countless cartoonists designing and coloring.

Every time she sat down, memories would flood her about how she got here. The same scents from day one lingered here even still.

Right as she was about to start drawing, she heard a knock on her door. She turned around to see a rather tall, thin, yellow duck with grey gloves leaning against the door frame. She smiled, recognizing him instantly.

"Hey, if it isn't the head cartoonist gal. What's up today?" The duck asked in a typical calm manner as he sipped on his hot chocolate for the morning.

"Hey Lefty! Good to see you this morning," Chloe quickly replied, turning around in her swivel chair to face him, "Any interesting news lately?"

"Yeah, quite a lot of things actually. Care to hear them?"

"Sure I got plenty of time today. Seems like the comic due date was pushed back a day so…" Chloe muttered, giving the sign that she was a bit upset at how lax it was.

The two had worked together for many years now. Lefty even knew that she commonly donated to the cogs as well and befriended one or two. It never really bothered him as she didn't support their goals, so he stayed quiet about it.

"Ah, call it an extension for…um…quality?" He attempted to ease her disappointment, which resulted in a smile on her end. He gladly returned that smile.

"You're always looking for a way to cheer me up, aren't you?"

"Hey, a happy artist is a good artist," Lefty answered back. "Anyways, so a few things happened. There was a new record in this playground for most cog floors defeated in a single day, done by some cat and her friends. Then there was news about Storm Sellbot 2.01 that they just started last week, thought that it was so great to be going after those metal sell-" He trailed off when he saw the glare coming from Chloe's eyes. Perhaps that wasn't the best topic for him to talk about.

"Er…I mean I thought that it was pretty sad that they felt like they had to storm those innocent sellbots in the factories again…" He backtracked while pulling at his collar; suddenly feeling a bit uncomfortable.

Chloe let up and simply shook her head.

"I know, it's just the news you write. You don't get to say what happens in Toontown, Lefty," She confided as she turned back to her desk.

Lefty just stood there and held his cup with both hands, a bit lost on what he was meant to say now. He occasionally forgot that she preferred to leave the Sellbots alone.

"Well…I guess I'll leave you to it then. You know where to find me..." He said in the awkwardness and let himself out.

She gave a small sigh of relief once he was gone and began to doodle a sketch. Lefty wasn't a bad toon, he just said the wrong things periodically. She just wished he wasn't quite so arrogant.

It was well past noon by now, and Chloe decided to spend her break browsing the Cattlelog and looking through her emails. A few emails from the school came up; some get-togethers and big games being announced. She wanted to attend but with neither of her kids on the team and her already busy lifestyle, it would be hard to add 'sport attendee' to her schedule.

She finally found something in the Cattlelog that she was interested in. While she was a very selfless woman, she did indulge a tiny bit for herself now and again. Today she had found a very intriguing bottle of eyeliner, and she wanted it. She called and ordered the desired make-up from the cattlelog operator, and then gave her address for it to be delivered.

Once she had finished her online browsing, she swiveled around in her chair so that it faced the door, then got up and headed out into the hallway.

She went into the break room to see several of her fellow toons relaxing and laughing with each other while snacking on some ice cream and sandwiches. While Chloe always seemed like a talkative toon, she secretly loved silence far more. It wasn't like she didn't enjoy socializing, but it tired her out rather quickly if a toon was too social with her.

Of course she had never told any of her friends this and as such, some of them always had a lot to say. Today was no different when a bunny waved her over with a bit too much energy. One would think that she must have just had a very sugary snack, but in reality she was actually just a super energetic toon. Chloe could never figure out how she could have so much pent up energy without eating as much as she should, nor could she figure out how the bunny never ran out of energy.

Either way, Chloe came over to her, and the bunny promptly pulled a chair out for her.

"Thanks. What's up, Buttercup?" Chloe asked as she looked at her watch to keep track of the time.

"Oh, lemme tell you all about it!" Buttercup exclaimed as Chloe mentally groaned.

She really didn't word that right, and last time Buttercup had taken up an hour of her time that she could have been drawing with.

"So you know that really cute duck that does interviews for new shop owners across the playgrounds?" She asked eagerly.

"Yes…Oli? Olin? O-" Chloe tried to remember, but Buttercup cut her off before she could get it.

"Yes! Well I heard he found a new ice cream place at The Brrrgh!"

"Right? Why do they always have ice cream places at the coldest playground? How can it be so hard to have one like, right next door?" Chloe complained, rolling her eyes, but Buttercup was extra talkative today.

"Well, apparently he was talking to the owner who's this really handsome bunny. Do you think he would like me? I'm talkative and social, right? Not off-putting?"

"No, I bet he would prefer a quieter toon…" Murmured Chloe as she looked away. She then looked back at the bunny and smiled saying, "Why of course he would. What's there not to like about you?"

"Really?! Oh you might be right! I should go talk to him," Buttercup exclaimed excitedly.

"Yes, you should. Right now actually, too. The longer you wait, the less likely he may talk to you. Go find out how to see him!" Chloe said with a perfectly faked supportive tone, more on board with this idea just so Buttercup could talk the ear off of another toon.

"Great idea! Sorry to leave you so soon but I need to find out about how to get to see him!" Buttercup exclaimed, but Chloe simply shook her head and smiled.

Chloe waved Buttercup off, and Buttercup quickly took her leave so that she could find the potential bunny of her dreams. Well, that was easy enough.

Once she was gone, Chloe got up and poked around in the fridge for something to hold her over until dinner, settling on a PB&J sandwich.

She didn't mean to push others away who did not perfectly fit her style, but she had known Buttercup for several years, so she knew if she didn't find her exit strategy as soon as possible, it was going to be a while.

It had just hit afternoon. Roughly the time when her kids would be released from school. Most parents would pick up their little ones from the schoolyard, but Chloe had no need to. Her boys were old enough now to find their way home since their house was not too far from school, and typically they would play with their friends until supper.

Most parents would be afraid of their kids getting caught by a Cog, but Chloe was a bit more lax and decided it was best that her kids learned the hard way. She of course warned them of where to go and where not to go, and to avoid the Cogs at all costs. However, like any child, they eventually didn't listen to their elder and ended up in a fight with two tier-one Cogs who promptly depressed Dally.

Dilly had cried out for their mother to help them, which she did as soon as she heard their calls from her Friend Phone Lists, a device that was made for toons to message and call for each other, or even send little emoticons to each other.

She then carried Dally back to the playground and fed him several ice cream cones to give him back his energy once they had gotten back to the playground. After that, the two avoided the streets like the plague, and that was all Chloe wanted.

Most toons would have called her a bad mother for that, but she didn't agree. All Toons went sad now and again from the Cogs, so she made sure they knew that they had to be careful to minimize the amount of such an event occurring.

She had gotten a lot done for her latest comic today. She was rather proud about that as it was coming together nicely. She gave it a quick little review to gauge her story's progression.

It was about that little toon called Antia C Space she saw in her dreams, who was going to land on the sun and bring back sunshine to all her friends back in Toontown so they could heal each other even better than with normal Toonup gags. So far she was in the middle of the landing scene with Antia looking down at the big yellow ball of light.

Chloe nodded to herself, happy with her effort today as she put away her stencils and pens into a pink cup and then put her papers in a drawer marked "WIP".

She was becoming fatigued after several hours of doodles and brainstorming for a fun plot off of her dream, so she called it a day and headed for the exit.

She got out the doors, but right as she was about to teleport back to the playground she heard someone calling her name.

"Chloe! Wait up!" Called out Lefty as he ran down the steps.

He was running a bit too fast and tripped himself up, knocking himself down on the ground with a smack. Chloe winced at the impact, almost able to feel the blow he just took.

"Lefty, be more careful. What is it that has you tripping over yourself to tell me?" Laughed Chloe as she squatted down, looking over him as he rolled onto his back, red in embarrassment.

"I…*gasp* I….wanted….to offer…an afterwork…dinner….got time….ugh…" Lefty panted in exhaustion.

"Lefty, you act like you just ran a marathon. We are at the steps of our art building," She mildly amused by his exhaustion from such a short run, making him redder.

"Okay, so…heh…right. Never mind...just uh…dinner? Is that cool?" He said, trying to regain his composure.

"Maybe another time Lefty. I need to go, okay?" Chloe quickly denied, standing back up straight.

"Oh…I mean yeah. Sure, sure, I understand. Maybe another time then," Lefty said as he sat up, brushing himself off.

"Be careful, okay? Have a good evening," Chloe said before walking a few steps away to place her portal.

She tried to leave without being rude, but she just wanted some alone time before her kids came back to pester her about dinner. She pulled out her teleport hole and threw it on the ground.

"Oh, good. Yeah, another time. Have a good…" Lefty said quickly but she jumped through without letting him finish, "...night. Yeah. Ugh! Why am I so awkward!?" He complained to himself after the portal had closed itself. He walked embarrassed down the street by himself with his hands in his pockets and kicked a pebble in frustration.

Chloe was humming to herself as she stirred a pot of Mac N Cheese for the kids. It was just about time when her kids knew they needed to be home.

Sure enough, she heard the front door swing open and two young laughing voices barge into the house. The peaceful silence of her boiling water and wooden spoon gently tapping against the pan was now replaced with a stampede and chatter loud enough to wake the dead. She called to them without looking.

"Good boys for being home on time. Your dinner's nearly ready, so go wash up and sit at the table, okay?"

"Yes, Mama!" Dilly and Dally's voices shouted in unison.

Chloe let the pot sit for a bit as she turned her attention to her own meal, a simple roast 'beef' sandwich and an egg. She prodded at the roast in the toaster carefully to see if it was fully cooked and sure enough, it was. So she pulled it out, got out a bit of cheese and grabbed the toast, and gave herself a slightly generous helping of roast to complete her sandwich.

Not too bad today, girl... Chloe thought to herself, crossing her arms in satisfaction.

Then she heard two pairs of stamping paws running down the stairs and towards the kitchen. Dilly and Dally raced each other to the table and sat down eagerly awaiting their meal. Chloe returned to their pot to see it was ready, so she cut the gas to the heater and drained the excess water into the sink.

She knew both boys were staring at her, and she chuckled a bit, mildly amused by their impatience while still being quiet for food. Within a few minutes she was pouring gooey, cheesy pasta into two bowls and set each one in front of her boys.

"Eat up, my loves," Chloe said with some proudness at her handiwork.

They obliged with no hesitation, digging in with gusto.

Meanwhile, she had grabbed her own dinner and calmly bit into it, savoring the flavor. She didn't make roast too often, but it certainly tasted nice to have now and again. She thoughtfully chewed as she glanced at the Toon News from this morning.

As she took her third bite, she heard two small burps and two utensils clang into their respective bowls. Chloe closed her eyes and sighed, knowing exactly what that meant.

"Perhaps next time you two shouldn't rush through your meals," She said firmly as she put down the paper, giving a glare at both boys for wolfing down their dinner.

"Sorry, Mama," They said, holding their heads down.

"Mhmm. Go take a bath now, kids. It's getting late," She ordered, unconvinced at their apology.

"But it's not even completely dark yet!" Complained Dally.

"Yeah, you always let us stay up until dark," Chimed in Dilly.

"Yes, I do, unless you decide to throw away your manners, in which case, you get to bathe and go to bed now. Now go on, hurry up. I'll tuck you in after," She said unmoving.

Both her kids groaned and whined and sulked as they both put their bowls in the sink and walked up the stairs to clean themselves. Their mother only shook her head. When will they learn?

With both kids in bed, Chloe took some time to go outside to the back patio and look out across the lake. She had bought this particular home for the lake so the kids could jump right into some water in the summer, learn to fish for their pets, and have less yard to take care of. Plus it was more of a community lake, so they could make new friends in it too. It was also perfect to her for a different reason.

The moon reflected beautifully over the lake as it rose higher into the sky, and it gave her a lovely sense of comfort. It also was something else for her. After making sure that no one was around, Chloe placed a towel in a lawn chair by the lakeside and walked into the water, still in her dress.

The water was still rather warm from the day's sunlight, and once she was about neck high, she lifted her feet up and began to float on the surface, gently paddling with her hands and barely making a disturbance in the water's fragile surface.

She breathed slowly and deeply, taking in the peace of her world by floating on a warmed lake from the day's sun while adding a mix of childishness by soaking her clothes at the same time. The result was a glorious joyous mixture of relaxation and playfulness that she absorbed as much as she could.

For almost an hour, she did nothing more than float on the water; letting all her stresses melt away into nothingness. Eventually though, she felt a satisfaction in herself and opened her eyes to the moon in front of her.

It was a completely cloudless night and a full moon, so she was able to look at the whole thing without disturbance. Perhaps she should draw out a moon landing sometime. She hadn't mentioned it in a long while so she was sure it would be nice to bring it back again.

However, for now she needed to get some sleep, so she waded back to the shore and got back onto her feet. She grabbed the towel off the lawn chair and covered herself with it.

Once that was sufficient, she threw her soaked outfit onto a nearby clothes line she normally used to dry out clothes she washed, then tightened the towel around her and headed inside, hopping along the cobblestone path she had placed for her convenience of avoiding tracking dirt into the house.

She creeped quietly inside her house to her room, got changed into her pajamas, and sat in her bed. She had a sudden tiredness flow across her, calling her to her dreamland.

So she obliged and crawled under the covers and welcomed her dreams. She needed to finish off the space story after all. Her readers were waiting.