Marian knew the trouble had really begun when Carver returned from Ostagar.
She remembered the day he'd left. The entire village of Lothering said goodbye to someone; sons, wives, brothers, daughters, sisters, husbands. It seemed all the young people marched with the army south, their hard expressions barely concealing the fear simmering just under the surface.
Mother spent the week before trying to convince Carver not to go. At first she'd shouted. Then she'd coaxed. Finally she pleaded - that was when Marian and Bethany knew she was truly desperate, for Leandra Hawke never begged for anything.
But nothing would move Carver. This was his chance to really do something for Ferelden, he'd said, instead of being stuck in Lothering (though he didn't say it) looking out for Marian and Bethany. That was Carver for you; always restless with a stubborn streak a mile long, always so sure there was more to life beyond the quiet little village they called home.
So he left with the rest of them, just one more pair of boots trampling the muddy ground into slush. And as the days turned into weeks, Mother's face grew pinched and lined from worry, and her nails became ragged from nervous chewing. She spent half her time wandering the house and the rest of the time praying as if she could force the soldiers to return by sheer will alone.
Two months passed and the soldiers did return, and Carver was not with them. And for a week Mother's sobs rang through the house, Bethany's tears fell into the soup and for once in her life Marian went without complaint to tend the garden and put forget-me-nots on the non-descript little grave in the corner of Lothering's cemetery. Then came the silence; tense and unbearable, and things only worsened with the news that came in from the south. Marian cared as much about the goings-on of kings and Grey Wardens as she did for the dirge the chantry choir sung for months on end.
"We'll have to leave soon," she told Mother and Bethany, without so much of a crack about how things had improved since the templars left.
"We're not leaving without Carver," Mother said, and so they stayed.
While people trickled out of Lothering with what few meagre possessions they had, the Hawke family stayed. And when the Chantry priestesses were evacuated, still they remained.
Not until Carver came home, Mother said, and Marian hadn't the heart to tell her that Carver was not coming, for she didn't quite believe it herself. Instead she packed their possessions and gathered food, and gritted her teeth every time she walked past the chantry and saw one more candle added to the shrine of remembrance.
And one day she opened the door, and there was Carver. He was battered and bloody and sweaty, but there was no mistaking the shock of black hair and the intense blue eyes - father's eyes, just about the only thing he'd inherited from him.
"Sister," he mumbled, and fainted.
It wasn't the first time he'd turned up at the door, swaying like a drunken idiot, or even the first time he'd passed out on the kitchen floor. Marian resolved (even as she struggled to extricate herself from his limp form - since when had Carver become so damn heavy-) to not let him live it down. Ever.
The clatter and thud brought Bethany running, and the look on her face when she saw the two of them on the floor in a tangle of limbs made Marian want to laugh and cry at the same time. Mother was not far behind her.
"Now can we leave?" Marian asked.
"Yes," Mother said, and stroked Carver's hair back from his brow.