"Hey, Hawke! Is that your sister?" Carver followed the fellow Templar-recruit's gaze and saw, indeed, his older sister. She was talking to one of the merchants, Sol if he remembered correctly.
"Yes," he confirmed. "It is,"
"Well, now we know why you won't let us tag along when you visit your family. If I had a sister who as good-looking as yours I would keep her under lock and key," Carver couldn't stop the snort from coming out.
"My sister would just pick the lock," or blast the door open he added in is mind. "She's stubborn and would never let anyone other than herself make decisions for her," the understatement of the year. His sister gave the word stubborn a new meaning.
He followed her with his eyes as she started to walk towards the stairs. His heart stopped beating for a second when the Knight-Captain stopped her and panic began to enter his mind. It was almost instinct by now, to worry when a Templar talked to her or even looked at her. Not that his older sister ever was in need of his protection. She could take care of herself, could take care of almost everything. His assistance was never needed.
He let out a breath of relief when Cullen let her walk on. She's almost by the stairs when her eyes fell on him and her pace slowed somewhat. Their eyes met and for a moment he believed that she would come over and talk to him. But she didn't. Instead her eyes narrowed and turn stormy. Without a word, or any other acknowledgment of his existent, she disappear down the stairs and out of his sight.
Has his decision really hurt her that much? They hadn't said a word to each other since the day she came back from the Deep Roads. She was never home when he found time to visit and she never accompanied mother to visit him in the Gallows, not that he could really blame her for the latter. He had sent her a letter once but had yet to receive an answer.
He didn't know how to react to this. In a way he was... happy. Happy that she showed some reactions other than teasing to his decision but at the same time it hurt that she had more or less cut him our of her life. Why couldn't she understand that this was something he needed to do? He needed some purpose in his life. For years that purpose had been to take care of his sisters, of Bethany. And with her gone it had been painfully clear that he wasn't needed.
As a child, he had admired her. Admired her strength, her skills and easy-going way. For as long as he could remember he had been worried for his sisters, worried that the templars would notice something. They had suspected Bethany a few times but never the oldest Hawke. He understood, years later, why they never questioned or at least watched her as they had with Bethany. While Bethany had look scared and nervous most of the time, their older sister had looked anything but that. The combination of her high held head and her witty tongue saved her, making the templars think that she could never be a mage. And he admired her because of that. And in later years, resented her because of that. Resented because everyone turned to her for help, for advise, for comfort. For everything, while he stood forgotten in her shadow. Even their father had turned to her in his final hour and asked her to take care of the family. Sure, she was the oldest of the three but he was the soldier, the one without magic. He should have been the one that took care of them, no one would have been suspicious about him.
So yes, he was happy in a way to get a reaction out of her. But at the same time it hurt to have his older sister look at him with nothing but fury and betrayal. Because at the end of the day, it didn't matter what he thought of her; her opinion of him mattered more.