Thom knew well that 'Morning Work' had never exactly been Temperance's specialty, and being separated from her for as long as she had been working at Beldam only drove the differences home even further. Though he still awoke in the early hours of the morning, when the mist still laid heavy over Skia, dewdrops hanging from the blades of grass and the leaves of the trees around the cottage, he hadn't had the opportunity to look down at her as he rose from the bed, or stop by for one last look as he headed either to his office or out into the streets for whatever he had planned. Instead, waking to an otherwise empty bed (if one ignored the large puddle of dark fur that was Artos) had become more commonplace, which was all the more painful in a cottage where everything else had reminded him so stringently of Temperance.

But with the Ver Festival, she had promised to be around, and had indeed been there this morning, which had been a significant buoy to his waning spirits of late. It wasn't that the festival itself was any important demarcation of their relationship, but he knew well enough how much Temperance would enjoy it. Flowers upon flowers upon flowers everywhere, and people littering the streets. For all that she lived on the outskirts, he knew that she was a people person at heart, even if it was in a fairly different way to his own. So he had set out that morning with a fresh spring to his step, and taken Artos with him, if only because he knew that the bear of a puppy would get all too anxious left at home alone for too long.

Standing by the store they had agreed to meet at, he was... as usual... fairly easy to pick out from the crowd from his height alone, his neatly cropped dark hair rising above the rest. The dog at his side was generally a fairly good sign as well, and his lips immediately curled into a smile as he heard her voice, turning with a grin to face her. For a moment, his eyes didn't quite rest on her wreath, but on her face instead, drinking in the sight of her as he always did before allowing his gaze to lift to the flowers in her hair. "As pretty as the fae of Sylthame." he agreed with a low chuckle, slipping his arms around her waist and giving in to the eternal temptation to lean down and kiss her, although cautious not to disturb the wreath of colorful flowers in her hair. "Missed you this morning, love."