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FFXIV Writes 2024 - Prompt #1: Steer
Spoilers for Dawntrail MSQ up to level 92 and all the story that comes before it lie beneath the cut! You have been warned.
Xander couldn’t help but chuckle as he settled into his cabin for the evening. How do I always manage to get myself entangled in politics? I keep swearing that this time, this time I’ll do the wise thing and act as an observer as I travel, and yet…
He’d had his misgivings about going to Tural for the sake of aiding the nation’s princess in her bid for the throne from the very beginning. While his time spent in other lands often ended up entwining him inexorably with their political goings-on, this would be one of the first times he was going to a location for explicitly political purposes. Well, aside from his aid in Doma and Ala Mhigo in their liberation from the Empire, but that felt different, and he wasn’t as directly involved in the discussions when the time came to determine what shape the nations would take in the wake of their newfound freedom. There, he was one soldier in a crack squad amongst many revolutionaries.
But this time- this time he’d be traveling to Tural strictly to aid someone in a political maneuver, throwing the weight of his not-inconsiderable strength as combatant and advisor behind whichever person received his backing. And yet, while having met Zoraal Ja himself, he was inclined to agree with Wuk Lamat’s assessment of his character, Xander couldn’t shake a feeling, especially during these early legs of his journey, that he’d been talked into backing the wrong horse.
Wuk Lamat was not ready to lead these people. He’d said as much directly to her father’s face, which was perhaps a lapse in etiquette and diplomacy, but he’d been asked for his honest opinion. She had a good heart, she clearly loved her nation, but she lacked the forbearance, maturity, and, more importantly in his book, the support of her people necessary to give her victory in the Rite of Succession any meaning.
As things currently stood, if she succeeded in the Rite where all others failed, Xander had little doubt that her success would be attributed not to her, but to her cadre of foreign allies, and especially to him, about whom some few rumors from overseas had already begun to circulate. (Though none properly grasped the depth of his deeds, and understandably so, they beggared belief when he considered them from an outsider’s perspective.)
He knew all too well what he looked like, his introversion mistaken for pride and smug superiority, his strategies and candid words to a nation’s leaders taken as strings pulled in a coup d'état at least once. An outsider, the wicked vizier to the throne who held the true political power. (An accusation that, at least for Ishgard, he would be hard-pressed to deny- he’d really charged in like an aurochs in a china shop and destroyed their thousand-year foundational beliefs without a second thought to the repercussions for the people living there, back then. It was little wonder people looked at him either awestruck or askance after he’d nigh-singlehandedly ended the Dragonsong War. The tales always conveniently forgot his comrades and companions in their efforts to tell stories of Great Men, it seemed.)
And who was he to come to Tural to steer the course of its future? Should that not be left to the people who lived there, with his influence far, far away from it?
He remembered asking that question once of his latest lover, a man only all-too-familiar with the concept of barging into another nation and imposing the will of another over it, ere he set out.
“The seeds of Empire are sewn upon two primary concepts: One, that your homeland’s culture is the best of all possible cultures. Two, that all other cultures must, by nature, be primitive, the result of ignorance, or dangerous, and a threat that must be eliminated. You have far more self-awareness than I did at your age, and have ever been to new locations as a learner and observer. You needn’t paralyze yourself from your nature of helping others, so long as you keep an open mind and listen.”
Gaius was right, Xander had to admit. And there was most certainly a difference between imposing one’s will and being invited to play a role.
A role that he was only now coming to understand, in full.
“Guide Lamaty’i in the way that you think best. Walk at her side and, when needed, push her to walk forward.”
He was not here to gain Wuk Lamat glory, but to nurture her. To ensure that she grew into someone truly worthy of the title of Dawnservant. He had been invited to aid her because learning of other people’s perspectives might force her to reconsider her own limited knowledge, and thence grow.
I’m hardly a stranger to mentoring others, be it in the art of combat or simply the life of an adventurer. Xander mused, fiddling with a crown-and-sword-shaped pin he kept fixed to his lapel. This is- while admittedly a much larger task- an evolution of that same mentality. So. Best not to think of this as a means to steer the course of a nation, but rather, a way to steer Wuk Lamat along the paths that will help her grow and aid her people the most. If in so doing, she manages to succeed in the Rite where others fail, then so be it. But even if not… He smiled to himself. It will be worth it to watch another sprout blossom.