Velthomer was hot, the xeric woodlands swiftly giving way to patches of more arid land the closer one got to approaching the Yied Desert in the northeast, and with the weather having been the way it’d been in Belhalla recently Arvis was coming to sorely miss the utterly unforgiving lack of humidity his home duchy was so well known for. The pounding of the rain outside hammered against the stone walls and the window panes of the castle wherever it could reach, and even coming indoors didn’t mark any reprieve from the sound of it echoing down through the corridors. With how swiftly he’d shed his cape and flung it to hang from one of the empty sconces on the wall it almost seemed as though the thing were choking him, but really, there was hardly much appeal behind wearing what had essentially boiled itself down to being a sopping wet blanket clinging to his back. The emperor was still plenty damp, but at least without his cloak he wasn’t dripping all over the floors save for an occasional stray drop from his hair now and then. It scarcely mattered; what did was that he was out of that infernal downpour, that he was in where he could finally get dry and, most importantly, that what he’d been covering up beneath his cape had the good fortune of remaining untouched by any pesky rain.
Calling for his wife was tricky, in part due to the grandness of the castle naturally lending itself to difficulties in carrying one’s voice without yelling, but also because he simply didn’t know where it was she’d gone. If he had any assumptions at all it was that she’d put herself up in a room with their young children for one reason or another, and if they were asleep it’d make waking them up again the last thing on his agenda. He stepped out into the nearest hall, walking slowly while the heels of his boots softly clicked against the stone flooring and echoed down against the walls --- he brought with him a gift in the form of some streuselkuchen, which certainly wasn’t anything particularly grandiose, but with his personal affinity for sweets and general confectionary Arvis figured it couldn’t possibly hurt to want to bring Deirdre something saccharine on the way back.
