#it was only until eorzea that maedwyn truly felt he was safe

[meowww-ffxiv]

OK so Maedwyn didn't witness the public execution of those resistance leaders Fran referred to during the Ivalice quests because it happened after Stormblood 4.0

But Garlemald repressed several different uprisings during its occupation, so after one of those was when Maedwyn was forced to witness the execution of several friends, including his lovers at the time. He didn't directly participate in their capture because his minders were leery that he could actually escape or turn around and kill them, so they had him on the Bozjan front and elsewhere in Ilsabard. But that time they tried to break him.

Except Maedwyn, already all but dead in spirit by then, resolved that he could not die a conscript afterwards.

And then he thought he couldn't die when the others had. How could he face them? How could he just give up? But the Bozjan resistance didn't welcome him, appropriately leery because Maedwyn would've fought them for some ten years by then.

One of their members sympathized, though, and helped him leave. So Maedwyn left.

And I'm guessing the wiki meant "30 years ago" as in 30 years before A Realm Reborn. So for Maedwyn, the nightmare and exile might have well neared four decades in persisting.

But it does give me a whole 20 years between his leaving his home country and ARR starting to do all sorts of things. 👀