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Aydria awkwardly shouldered open the door to her quarters in the Andron, delicately balancing two coffee cups in her hands and pinning a brown paper bag full of various freshly baked pastries between her forearm and chest. The smaller room was already full with the morning sun, its warm rays shining down past the bed, inviting its occupant to join the day. “Snoe,” the Warrior of Light said in a half-whisper as she sat down breakfast on the table in the center of the room, “you awake?”
“Mmf,” came a muffled response from Snoegeim, covers wrapped around them, their haphazard bedhead sticking out from under the blankets. It was unusual for the studious roegadyn to sleep in this late; however, the pair had arrived in Sharlayan late the previous evening, and Snoegeim had accidentally stayed up entirely too long into the night discussing the finer points of the Third Umbral Era with an equally time-oblivious G’Raha Tia.
Aydria chuckled softly. “Morning to you too, sunshine,” she said jokingly as she crouched herself down next to her girlfriend’s drowsy face and placed a kiss on their forehead, eliciting a small hum of joy. “I’ve got breakfast all ready, if you get up.”
“Coffee…?” Snoe inquired sleepily, head not leaving the pillow.
“Mhm,” Aydria confirmed, “and I picked up some rolanberry muffins, and one of those lemon creme pastries I know you like, too.”
Snoegeim’s deep purple eyes opened wide. “Really?”
“I knew that’d get you out of bed. Come on, your coffee will get cold,” the miqo’te said with a smile as she rose back to her full height. Snoegeim sat up quickly and stretched away the remaining sleepiness, suddenly invigorated by the concept of their favorite breakfast treat from the Last Stand. They swung their long legs out from under the covers into an awaiting pair of light green slippers which matched their pajamas. After fumbling for a moment with their glasses, they stood and joined the shorter Warrior of Light at the small table who had just finished unloading a small assortment of breakfast pastries from the paper bag onto a plate.
“You sleep alright?” Aydria asked as she took her first sips at her coffee, “You came to bed pretty late.”
Snoegeim yawned as if to underscore her observation. “I’ve certainly had better - and much worse, back when I was still doing my undergraduate studies. But I didn’t have a sweet, thoughtful girlfriend then,” they said with a slight blush and a smile they hid behind their own coffee.
"Oh, stop, you big dork," Aydria said, waving off the sappy compliment while bringing herself to her tiptoes, reaching up to pull the much taller woman down for a soft morning kiss. Snoegeim obliged and bent down, smiling into the kiss all the while as their lips met.
“Well,” Aydria said after they withdrew, “I hope you learned something from your late night, at least?”
“It was, actually!” Snoegeim responded happily, tucking some of their stray orange hair behind their right ear. “Raha’s personal experiences of a Calamity were absolutely fascinating, and certainly created new framing for the historical accounts I’ve read of the Third Umbral Era, specifically those shortly following the associated Calamity.”
The mythologist slurped at their coffee, pausing afterward to take a bite of the lemon tart that had lured them out of bed in the first place. “ Mmph, ” they grunted pleasantly through a mouthful of pastry, “these are always so good!”
They set the tart back on its plate and washed it down with another sip of their sweet, creamy coffee. “Anyway, the Calamity - talking about it gave me the basis for some new research! I figure, the Final Days are tantamount to a Calamity, or near as damn it, but one we narrowly avoided thanks to you. Some parts of the world were more directly impacted than others, but it must have had effects across all Eorzea for people’s faiths and general worldviews, right?”
“Right,” Aydria agreed, nodding along, seeming to forget for a moment about her own coffee as she listened intently.
“And so I figure,” Snoegeim forged ahead, “why not go visit a few places and see how people might be changing? It wouldn’t be much; just a few preliminary interviews with people in places most effected by the Final Days like Thavnair and perhaps Garlemald, and even right here in Sharlayan. I’m not certain the Studium would even accept it as official work, but it’s sure to be important data, if only for posterity’s sake!”
“Sounds like a fun adventure to me,” Aydria said with a beaming smile. “When do we start?”
“Well, I, er…hadn’t quite figured that much out yet. And you don’t have to come along! It’ll all be very routine, just basic questions to a few people…I should probably figure out who I’d even want to talk to, though, too,” Snoegeim awkwardly replied, eyes on their pale brown coffee as they stirred their anxieties away in it.
“I’ve got an idea for who you could talk to here in Sharlayan,” Aydria offered, a smirk growing at the corners of her mouth.
“Oh? Who?”
“Well, the gleaner’s guild has seen some pretty major reorganization since there’s no more need to be gathering things from all over in preparation for the Final Days - you could always talk to Shallow Moor.”
“O-oh no, I couldn’t possibly -”
“Oh, c’mon Snoe!” Aydria interrupted, “She doesn’t bite! I think. She might bite. Even if she does, I bite! So it’s not like you can’t deal with that,” she teased.
Snoegeim had fully flushed to a deep shade of red. “There’s plenty of gleaners, we don’t need to trouble her with something so trivial…”
“You can dodge all you like, but I heard a tale about you being awfully interested in her back when you were both at the Studium. I’m sure she’d love to talk to you! She’s quite nice! I’ll even go with and introduce you; since she knows me. We could go today! She’s down in Labyrinthos, assisting some agricultural something or other at Meryall.”
“See! She’s busy, I knew it! And I don’t have a crush!” Snoegeim protested.
“You’re making a lot of excuses for someone without a crush, something I never even said you had,” Aydria pointed out, taking a bite from a rolanberry muffin.
“...okay, yes, maybe a tiny crush. A little one. It was years ago! I doubt she even remembers me.”
“Then all the more reason to just talk to her!” Aydria encouraged around the mouthful of muffin. “It’ll be fine, and we don’t even need to travel far to get started on your research!”
“You are being suspiciously pushy with going to see her, you know,” Snoegeim said skeptically before taking a another bite out of their lemon tart. “You just want to see her yourself, don’t you?”
“I am purposely roping her into your research because I think she’s cute, yes, and also because I want you two to meet,” Aydria answered, as though stating the most obvious thing in the world. “I overheard her going on about a special breed of flax that grows in Garlemald’s frigid snows and how it’s specially adapted for just that climate, and, well…” she gestured with her arms wide in a shrug.
Snoegeim sighed dreamily. “Yeah, that sounds like Shallow.”
Aydria chuckled. “Alright, ‘tiny crush,’ finish your breakfast and get dressed, then we’re heading to Labyrinthos to pay her a visit before you daydream away all those smart research thoughts.”
They rode the elevator down the Path of Artifice in relative quiet, Snoegeim spending the ride leafing through a slightly weathered journal full of scribbled notes to refresh their memory on proper research interviewing. The dim light from the elevator car was suddenly overpowered by the blazing artificial sun of Labyrinthos, causing Aydria to instinctively shield her eyes. “That thing gets me every time; and I know it’s coming,” she remarked as her eyes adjusted to the light, revealing the sprawling concentric rings of the subterranean research complex. In the distance on the second ring lie the many farms, orchards, and vineyards of Meryall Agronomics, their destination.
“So how exactly does this go again?” Aydria asked as their ride came to a smooth stop at Upper Acrinthos. “I can’t imagine we just…walk up and say ‘Hey, how’d the Final Days treat you?’, right?”
Snoegeim barked a laugh as they exited the lift. “Hah! You’d be surprised, really! It’s not that far off from exactly that, though it is more formally worded, typically. It has to be something uniform that you can ask repeatedly, of course, so that your collected data is skewed as little as possible by the questions you’re asking each person.”
“Makes sense,” Aydria said, raising her eyebrows slightly as she acknowledged the information. “So, what’s in there?” she asked, gesturing at the notebook Snoegeim was still leafing through as they walked across the plaza towards a second, smaller set of lifts to the second ring.
“Oh, just refreshing myself on the sorts of questions to ask - these are all old notes from other projects,” Snoegeim answered, their tone trying and failing to sound dismissively confident.
“So you’re nervous,” Aydria observed bluntly, backing herself into the second cramped lift.
“...yes, I’m nervous,” Snoegeim granted, closing the notebook and taking a moment as the lift began its descent to polish her glasses on her coat.
Aydria smiled softly. “Hey, you’re gonna do fine, alright? I tease, but you’re good at this stuff! And I’ll be here to be cute arm candy the whole time, so even if you do mess up, I can just be distracting,” she joked to lighten the mood, pulling down on her shirt to reveal as much cleavage as possible.
Snoegeim giggled, releasing some of the built up tension in their body. “You have to not distract me, you know.”
“No promises,” Aydria said with a wink. “Did you want to do a little trial run with me? Ask the super intimidating Warrior of Light your questions?”
The lift set down in the Medial Circuit with a clunk as the gears ceased their rotation. Snoe put a hand to their mouth in thought for a brief moment, then spoke as the two of them started to leave their lift car. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt? Can’t be too well prepared -”
“Aydria?! Is that you?” interrupted a loud shout from a nearby vineyard, the voice belonging to none other than the sought after Shallow Moor herself.
“Oh, Twelve,” Snoegeim muttered under their breath, anxiety they’d spent the entire short trip to Labyrinthos banishing flooding back at the unexpected introduction. Aydria reached up and gave their hand a firm, grounding squeeze.
“Hey. You’ve got this, ok? Just take a deep breath, and it’ll all be fine,” she reassured before releasing their hand and turning her attention to the approaching slate-skinned gleaner.
“Miss me?” Aydria called back jokingly.
Shallow laughed as she closed to within a few yalms, returning to a more normal volume - which was still a tad loud. “As if I’ve had the time! I swear, I spend weeks traipsing all over Eorzea looking for you for the Guild, and now I see you everywhere! Don’t tell me they sent you down here to help with whatever keeps running off with my grapes, now - unless you’ve sent yourself down here to help?” she asked, the corners of her mouth curling in a grin.
“Er, not quite,” Aydria said, mentally trying to remember without looking if there were any juice stains on her gloves from when she had snuck down into Labyrinthos last.
“Maybe I’ll recruit you for that later, then,” Shallow said with a wink, turning her attention at last to Snoegeim, who was clutching their notebook to their chest as though it were vital armor. “And who’s this, then?”
Snoegeim opened their mouth to speak. “I’m -”
“Wait! Don’t tell me, you look so familiar - I know you, somehow! Don’t tell me…” Shallow repeated, a gloved hand on her forehead as she wracked her brain. “Slaf- no, that’s not right. Sonewyn? No, no, she’s a blonde…Snoegeim? Snoegeim! Snoegeim Styrnbrydawyn, yes, I remember you now! We went to Studium around the same time, I think?”
Aydria raised her eyebrows, impressed. “Wow, and I thought I was good with remembering people.”
Snoegeim gave a tiny wave with one hand while still clinging tightly to their notebook with the other. “That’s me, heh,” they said, chuckling awkwardly. If Shallow noticed their nerves, she didn’t mention it, instead taking her gardening gloves off and tucking them into a pocket of her brown leather jacket.
“Well, I’m sure you’re not down here just to see me, now. You two headed somewhere?” she asked.
“Actually,” Aydria countered, “we did come down here just to see you. Sort of. Snoe’s got some research they’re starting, and I figured you’d be a great person to talk to about it.”
Shallow raised an eyebrow. “Me?”
Aydria somewhat unsubtly jabbed an elbow into Snoegeim’s thigh, reminding them they had to talk in this conversation, too. “Oh, um, yes! I’m conducting some preliminary interviews for a study of the impacts of the Final Days, and your position as a gleaner gives you a unique view on the changes right here in Sharlayan. Specifically, I’m intending to focus on the changes to day-to-day life for people. Would you be willing to answer a few questions for me? I promise it won’t take long,” Snoe explained, nerves driving them to speak a little too quickly.
“Well, don’t you know how to make a girl feel appreciated,” Shallow said with a smile, causing Snoegeim to blush a bright pink. “Sure! I’ll gladly answer a few questions. Should we go back to Meryall? I was just about to head back myself before you came along; there’s some rain scheduled soon I’d rather not get caught out in.”
Snoegeim nodded in agreement. “It’s a good thing we ran into you, or we’d likely have been caught in it ourselves. Right, then, to Meryall!”
The trio had barely made it inside before the rains began to gently fall outside, turning the unpaved paths to mud and making tiny puddles all across the flat stone plaza that comprised Meryall Agronomics. Shallow had opted to put a kettle on for tea before answering any questions - she couldn’t let a good rain go to waste, she claimed. Once the tea had been poured, they all settled around a round oaken table near a window, recycled water running in thin trails down the glass.
“So,” Shallow began, cupping her hands around the warm white cup, “how does this go, anyway? I’ve never been interviewed for anything before.”
“I’ll just be asking a few simple questions, and you can answer them in as much detail as you like,” Snoegeim answered, flipping open their notebook to a fresh page and pulling a pen from their jacket’s breast pocket. “Anything else you’d like answered, before we start?”
Shallow held open her arms briefly in an inviting gesture. “Fire away!”
“Excellent! Well then, to start us off: would you say that the advent of the Final Days changed your daily life?”
“ Whew , not pulling any punches are we? Well, certainly! Not in the least because of the changes to how gleaners even function - with no more world-ending crisis at hand to be gathering resources for, we’re suddenly all milling about with much less demands on our time. As for me, it’s left me spending much more time on my botanical interests down here in Labyrinthos than I was ever allowed before the Final Days. In a strange way, I’m almost thankful for them? Without the end nearly coming to pass, I wouldn’t have quite as much time to spend on the things that matter most to me - not to say that the explorations and journeys to faraway places didn’t matter, but after a while, you lose focus, y’know? I had to remember what I really was doing it all for.”
“Been there, in a way. Just kind of doing without thinking,” Aydria agreed with a nod, sipping at her tea.
Snoegeim diligently scribbled down Shallow’s response, rapid penstrokes following about a sentence behind her words. “I see,” they said as they put the final dot on punctuation. “This leads to my second question, then. Have the Final Days changed how you view the world in any way? Please, be specific as you like, as I know that is a rather open-ended prompt,” the copper-haired roegadyn asked.
Shallow closed a fist loosely and brought it to her lips, furrowing her brow in silent thought. “Hm,” she murmured into her hand, “I mean, I suppose so? It’s cliche, but they always say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone - or, at least in my case, almost gone. For me, at least, it’s less taking everything for granted? I’ve gathered hundreds of different things over the years as a gleaner, and while there’s always been a sense that every little plant and breed of grain is important in the grand scheme of things, having such a terrible thing almost rip them all out of my hands forever made me appreciate each of them and their uniqueness all the more.”
“So you would say that the Final Days more reinvigorated your existing values, rather than causing a shift in them, is that correct?” verified Snoegeim, looking up from their notebook for a moment.
“Yes! That’s it exactly - a reminder of why I’ve always done what I do, and to cherish every moment of life as it passes by,” Shallow confirmed with a smile, refreshing herself with a sip of honeyed tea.
“Excellent,” Snoe said, scribbling away. “Next question, then: have you changed how you treat others in the aftermath of the Final Days?”
Shallow cupped her teacup and thought for a while. “Hm,” she said finally. “You know, I don’t think I’d even considered it, but I think so? It was almost imperceptible, but, once everyone realized the truth of what was going on…well, a few people freaked out, right? Who wouldn’t? But there was this sort of unspoken shift in understanding, where everyone just sort of realized we had to be there for each other, or none of it was going to work. And so we just…did. Once you realize that sort of thing is possible; that you can just give each other grace and help each other out in every little tiny way you can every day - well, it was impossible for me to go back,” the platinum-haired roegadyn woman said, tone almost wistful.
“Some people fell back into old habits, of course. But for me, recognizing that everyone was doing their best at any given moment, and always choosing to see the silver linings - I couldn’t just stop,” she finished.
Snoe dutifully scrawled her words down in their notebook, a warm smile beaming into the pages as they wrote, the botanist’s words reminding them very much of that of Aydria herself. They once more inked the final punctation on their notes, and then put the pen down.
“Well, that was quite enlightening! Thank you!”
Shallow smiled warmly before replying. “For you, anytime,” she said, throwing a quick wink at the mythologist before leaning back in her chair. “Who all have you spoken to for this so far? Surely I’m not the first.”
“O-oh, er, you are the first, actually,” Snoe stammered out, still flustered from the wink. “I only thought of this line of research this morning.”
“My, you certainly work fast then. Well, if you’d like me to set you up with some more time with myself if you think of more questions, I’m happy to oblige. Or other gleaners, if you’re interested,” Shallow tacked on.
“I’ll be sure to do that!” Snoegeim said, blush invading their cheeks fully. “We- I,” they corrected themselves, “am looking to pursue some of this research in Thavnair, if you have any experience there? Or other gleaners?”
“I’ve been once or twice - absolutely fascinating place; some of the most vibrant horticulture I’ve seen in my travels. Just…don’t let Kytte talk you into taking the experimental aetheryte there.”
Snoegeim cocked a quizzical eyebrow. “Experimental aetheryte travel?”
“Trust her on this one,” Aydria said with a pained expression.
“I feel like there’s a story I’ve somehow not heard, here,” Snoe said.
“It was before the Final Days had begun, and Thancred, Urianger, Estinien, and myself were to contend with the tower that had appeared in Thavnair. We didn’t have time to spare taking a long journey by sea, or even the shorter trip by air, so Krile arranged us travel by experimental aetheryte with Kytte, instead…suffices to say it felt like the ground was spinning under my feet for hours afterwards,” Aydria explained in brief.
Snoegeim shuddered. “That sounds dreadful!”
“It’s hours if you’re lucky,” Shallow added, corroborating. “I’ve heard tales, though themselves probably a bit exaggerated, of people using the aetheryte end getting aethersick for days. Seriously, don’t use that thing unless you absolutely have to.”
“Duly noted,” Snoe said with a nervous laugh.
Shallow looked out at the still-falling downpour out the window. “While we wait the rain out, there’s a tale I’ve heard that I’d like to hear from the subject of it: Snoegeim, how’d you meet this goober, anyway?” she asked, gesturing with a smirk to the short miqo’te.
Aydria rolled her eyes. “Goober,” she muttered under her breath. “Whoever she heard this story from, it wasn’t me,” she assured her girlfriend.
“Oh, I’ll gladly tell it!” Snoegeim said excitedly. “I’d been doing some fieldwork in Thanalan, studying Belah’dian worship of Azeyma…”