"Thank you, I will."  He walks over, looking around as he does.  The clerks seem efficient without being overworked or miserable, and yes, the building continues to be very nice, even down to the places where people without the rank for separate offices do their work.

"Hello."  He'll pass over the note, if he was given it back.  "I was told I should ask you about... whether the Emperor minds talking to people?"

"What in the world d'you want to know that for?" says Avanye.

Ah, it's going to be that conversation again.  Well, he thinks he's gotten better at it since the first time around.

"I'd like to work for the government, but the government is the Emperor's, and I don't want to serve a man I don't know.  I think I'm just old-fashioned on the subject."  That he's not from Skygarden is obvious enough, from his accent, the cut of his clothes, and a dozen other little cues that add up to a first impression anyone forms about a stranger.  It's not surprising for a nobleman from the provinces to be old-fashioned, they just usually have the sense to avoid the capital.  "To be clear, I was expecting to - watch some public audiences, meet him at a banquet, things like that.  But apparently things like that don't happen."

"People don't... seek him out. Because he's terrifying," says Avanye. "I've been across a few times, once for a hurricane that was spotted heading for Southport, twice for corruption scandals. I'd go again if I had to. It's not the talking to him that's terrifying, really, he's been calm and friendly every time. It's just standing in a room with that much power that throws me."

"Maybe I'll end up terrified too, when it happens," although he doesn't expect so, "but that's fine.  I just want to know - would it be rude or disrespectful or wasting his time, if I asked to talk to him for a reason like this?  Would he mind?  Does the government think I should go and ask to talk to him, I suppose, since it looks like he put the government in charge of making these sorts of decisions?"

It... does not particularly seem like the government contains any people who know what the Emperor personally wants or minds.  But if so, he set it up that way, and there still isn't some better place to ask.  He misses home, and all the places he passed through that were like home enough that he knew how to find out the things he wanted.  But that only makes it clearer that it was important to come here and see for himself how much it's not like this.

Avanye considers this question for a few seconds.

"...I don't think he'd mind you showing up to ask. He might mind if there were fifty more of you, but you're the first I've heard of. And... if you want to talk to him, I don't think it's our business to stop you."

Hopefully there's someone whose job it is to stop random people from talking to the Emperor!  Or whose job it would hypothetically be if it ever happened, which it apparently doesn't.  Maybe he does just torture people to death when they annoy him, and this keeps everyone except Imar from annoying him.  He supposes he will find out.

He doesn't say any of that to the clerk, because he's tired of having conversations that keep feeling like they can't understand each other right.  If he comes back and stays, there'll be time enough to learn to understand Skygarden people.

"Well enough, then.  What do I, ah, do?"

He glances around. It's a pretty slow day; there are plenty of idle clerks.

He takes a moment to weigh his options.

"I can take you across," he concludes.

"Thank you, I appreciate it."  And they can go.

Avanye strides confidently through the moderately mazelike halls. It's not that long a walk, but definitely enough twists and turns to confound a casual observer—and leave the quiet ambient sound of working clerks a fair distance behind them—before they come upon a large, sturdy door in a thick stone wall. It seems to take a fair bit of Avanye's strength just to haul it open.

"Oof—there you are," he says, gesturing Imar through it. "There's a little courtyard just past the waiting room if you'd rather wait outdoors than in. He probably already knows you're here; it shouldn't be too long."

The waiting room is pretty cozy, with warm lighting, comfortable chairs, and a few plates of cookies and biscuits laid out on a table alongside a jug of water and some cups.

Everything about the place continues to be eye-catchingly pretty, but Imar manages not to get distracted from trying to remember the way.  He thanks Avanye, glad that he can go back without having any terrifying experiences he didn't want, and goes in.

The waiting room is also surprisingly empty, and-- did Avanye really say-- 

--everything about the palace continues to be confusing, and instead of standing here staring at the cookies in confusion Imar will go look at the courtyard.

As Avanye leaves, the heavy door swings shut behind him, cutting off the sound of his footsteps.

The courtyard, of course, is beautiful.

On the government side of the palace, there's a lot of wood paneling and carpets and so on, and not a lot of bare stone. The waiting room is similar. This courtyard, though, has the same feature the outer walls do: it seems to be all a seamless piece, every wall, every beautifully carved column holding up the narrow strip of roof circling its perimeter, every arch that connects those columns, right down to the walls of the raised garden beds and the paths that cross between them. There's no way to build a thing like this without magic. Even with magic, you still need incredible artistry and unfathomable power. On top of that, it almost looks like the shrubs in the garden beds and the few trees rising between them have also been grown deliberately to go with the decor.

(The sound of the door might be ominous, if Imar hadn't already thoroughly settled on not minding the worst possibilities.)

Oh.

The wood paneling and carpets looked very good, and were no doubt appreciated by the clerks in their large rooms that would echo with too many voices if they were bare stone - but this, this is beautiful.  He couldn't do anything like it-- he's never even thought of trying-- but he can put his hands against the wall and feel how it was done, how the shape of the slim arches carries the tension and weight, what trees those are and how they grow...  (He had been careful, before, not to use his magical senses where he wasn't invited.  But he was invited here, and - being careful is not what you should do when trying to get to know someone.  And it's so beautiful.)

A tall man with a pleasant face and a skeptical expression walks into the courtyard. His clothes are rich but not overly elaborate; there's definitely something of the same design sense as the palace in them, the pursuit of beauty with careful attention to practical purpose.

"You're that fellow who was pacing the walls," he says. "What did you want to talk to me about?"

He looks a bit startled, and a touch embarrassed, as he turns away from the wall to greet the man.  Nods at the first sentence, then looks much more startled at the second. 

"Ah- your majesty??"  For all that Avanye did say something that-- maybe implied exactly what just happened-- Imar really was not expecting the Emperor to come out to the waiting room to talk to him just like that!

Well.  He will bow first, graceful and proper, that definitely being what one is supposed to do when encountering the Emperor no matter how off-balance one is about his appearance, and then try to answer.

Sure, he can be patient with that.

Oh good.  Imar can be a lot less flustered with a moment to settle into remembering what he's doing here.

He's very easy to read, and as he straightens up, it's clear that while he was momentarily off-balance, he is not, actually, afraid.

"I do apologize - for the intrusion, and the walls."  A small bit of a smile.

"I'm Imar of Red Mountain.  In all truth, it's just that - I wanted to meet you, and I'm told that this is such a strange thing for someone to want that there aren't any... more normal... ways to do it, your majesty, or any rules about whether people should be allowed to just walk in like this and ask for a conversation.  Which definitely didn't make me less confused, or less curious."