The Sky that Nobody Sees

Circumstances

"Bloody long hair always clogging up every damn sewer on both damn floors," Inladris muttered, pulling reels of the stuff out of Arwen's shower drain. "Every damn day." She extracted another meter or three. "I swear one morning I'm just going to shave the lot of them."

"You say something, Inladris?" Arwen called from the front door, and Inladris slid her headphones down.

"You watch out!" Inladris called. "The living room furniture is all damp, I'm going to shave your head tomorrow morning, and I put some coconut pudding in the fridge."

"Say what?"

"Pudding, love, pudding! Top shelf."

Arwen propped her shoulder in the doorway of her bathroom, arms crossed. "You know you can't be a heavy sleeper in the Family. And, naturally, being unexpectedly woken can present a touch of a hazard to the one engaged in the waking."

Inladris pointed with a fist full of black hair. "Pudding. Now. Or I'll throw this wad of insanity at you."

Arwen snorted, and unhitched herself. "Try me." She wandered off. "Your new lemon cleaner smells nice!"

"Thanks, love!"

**

1935

Inladris sat in the grass with Tamarian in a park a few kilometers from Volkov Tower, a building mainly allocated to Thranduil's music producing company and office space, other than the top few floors. Thranduil strode in slow, long-legged paces around them while Inladris chatted sometimes with the father and other times with the son.

"You're welcome to go back to work," she offered, nudging her sunglasses back onto her cheekbones as she gazed up at him. "I've been living here my whole life; I think I can handle the Metro on my own."

Thranduil continued gradually rotating. "Oh no, I should like to better know my son's caretaker before entirely leaving her to her own devices." He took in a breath. "Besides, the Metro only opened this year—I should assume your previous years of residence could not have assisted you with navigating it."

She ignored his tease—he was right. "You got my references, didn't you?"

"One's references can only indicate so much. You come and go from your job at the daycare; if this position becomes permanent, you will live with my family."

Inladris nodded, and caught Legolas as he threw himself into her chest, propping him back onto his feet. "Makes sense. I could be a closet lunatic."

"I think your background check might have indicated peculiarities to that degree," he said, temporarily shading them as he passed before them. "However there are still your everyday pocket lunatics—are those the ones to whom you are referring?"

"Oh they must be. You know we lunatics: we just struggle with everything. Each other's names, associations, degrees of insanity, our own names...."

"Are you confessing to having experienced these symptoms?"

"Oh come now; everyone knows the crazy ones have no idea they're off their rails."

He tipped his head. "Indeed."

Inladris glanced at her small watch face on its teal band, then up at the father of the boy tugging on tufts of hair slipping out of her bun. "If you want a hot supper tonight I at least ought to get back."

"Very well."

Inladris reached behind herself and found his hand, gripping it tightly and pulling herself up while he raised an inquisitive brow at her commandeering of his assistance. Inladris bounced Legolas a few times on her hip and smiled. "Right. On we go!" She led the way back toward the sidewalks. Thranduil's company was built alongside another park, that one along a river, but for the sake of diversity they had visited the more distant green.