His hand is in hers.
It's small and sticky, fingers coated in some inexplicable grime, and it holds fast as he swipes at one side of his cheek with his other fist. Rough. Angry. His eyes are red, and there's a scrape on his chin and grass stains on his shorts. Wet tracks run down his flushed cheeks. But he holds her hand, and he's quiet as she tugs him along, her own heart swelling with the mingled pride at being the one to find him – Mother and Father had been so frantic – and anger, because he ran off to begin with, and guilt, because she's the eldest and she's supposed to watch him, and above all, concern. She's not even sure what's wrong. He won't say.
"Mother and Father are worried sick," she tells him.
Carver scoffs, the funny sound turning into a choked hiccough, and his fingers clench around her palm. "Did he even notice?" he asks her. It's the first thing he's said since she found him, and it annoys her that it's just confusing.
"Did who notice what?"
He sighs, angry, his eight-year-old frame shaking like a powder keg of emotion, and gives his face another angry swipe. In his aggressive efforts to rid his cheeks of their incriminating tear tracks, he only makes it work, reddening the skin of his cheeks. "Did Father even notice?" he demands. He's crying again, and he yanks his other hand free of hers. "Did he even notice, or was he too busy teaching stupid Bethany to use her stupid magic to even care?"
Before she can answer, he's sobbing, his face in his hands and a miserable hunch to his shoulders as he drops into a sitting position, right there on the ground. She could pick him up, she thinks. Get around behind him and just lift. But she knows her little brother when he's in a mood, knows he'd kick and punch and generally not make it worth her effort. She doesn't want to drag him back to their parents with a pair of bruised shins to show for it. So she lets out a breath and kneels in front of him. There's a farmstead in the distance, and miles of fencing that marks the horizon. They've only been in the small village north of Redcliff for a few months. They probably won't stay much longer, either, and she hasn't even bothered to learn the place's name this time. Father doesn't like the headman. The grass is stiff and dry underneath her hand, and she plays with it a little, watching Carver, waiting for him to stop sobbing long enough to make sense.
It only takes a minute.
"He didn't, did he?" Carver demands. "He never notices me anymore! He promised me we'd get to spend a whole day together, but we haven't, we're not going to, because now he spends all of his time with Bethany! He doesn't care anymore! She's got magic, what have I got? I'm just… I'm just…" he breaks off, his breathing ragged. His eyes are glassy with tears.
She likes to think that she's a good big sister. It never came with a set of instructions, and frankly, Bethany's easier than Carver, but over the years she's hashed out the basics. Don't drown them, don't punch them, don't let them get any bright ideas, and beat up the bigger kids when they make them cry. She's never been as good with hugging and affection – more like Father than Mother that way – but she can manage that, too, and so she goes to put an arm around him. She's not surprised when he shrugs her off, his eyes angry.
"It's not fair!" he tells her.
"I know," she replies, giving her half-hug another try. This second time, he lets her, albeit grudgingly. "But Father was really worried about you. He noticed straight away that you were missing." It's a lie. Mother was the one who noticed. But she's not above lying, especially when it gets her brother to let out a shuddering breath, and wipe away some of the snot from his nose.
"He didn't," he accuses, but there's nothing really invested in the denial. He wants to believe it, and Father really was worried once he realized, so she figures there's no harm.
"Of course he did. He's not avoiding you on purpose, you know."
Carver looks at her, all stupidly big blue eyes and messy hair, and she listens to him rant for the next couple of minutes about how much he hates Bethany's magic. A time or two the conversation turns to how much he hates Bethany, but she knows he doesn't mean it. Not really. So she lets him go on and on until he's run out of steam, nodding at the appropriate parts, shaking her head whenever required. Finally, he loses the last of his momentum. She's not sure how much time has passed by then. Mother and Father will probably be angry that they dallied, if they find out, but Carver's quiet and much less tense as she helps him to his feet, and he takes her hand again. Holds on tight as she leads him back towards the road. He's run a long ways – he's good at running, and she tells him so, reminds him that Bethany's not. That there are lots and lots of things that he can do that Bethany can't.
Inside, she's not really sure if she believes it or not. She doesn't have any magic either, after all. No spells. No dreams. She hardly ever spends any time with Father – spends most of it running around after Carver, now, in fact – but older siblings aren't allowed to get jealous. If they did, it would be chaos. So instead she fills his ear with all the things that are good about Carver. Some of them she has to reach for, because he's a snotty little brother and she's not afraid to acknowledge that, most days. But she does it, and by the time the road's sloping down into the town proper again, he's smiling again. Just a little. The way he often does when he wants to stay angry, but can't quite manage to.
It's not long before they're spotted, of course, and then Mother and Father are there, and Bethany. Father congratulates her for finding him. Carver's expression darkens a little before Mother sweeps him up, whispering her relief and scolding him in the same breath. The dark look passes when Father lowers a hand solemnly to the top of his head, and her brother buries his face into Mother's shoulder.
"I'm sorry," he says.
"Oh, Carver. Carver. What were you thinking?" Mother demands. "Do you have any idea how frantic we were? What if something had happened to you?"
"I'm sorry," he says again, crying once more.
It's still dark out when she opens her eyes.
Moonlight streams in, past the broken, dirt-stained glass in the high windows. There's a chill on the air. It creeps through the cracks in the floor and sinks down from above, filling the small room that she shares with Mother and Bethany. The floor beneath her is hard and cold. The sounds of snoring drift to her from the bunk-bed nearby – Bethany on top tonight, Mother on the bottom – and it takes her a moment to realize that she's kicked her ragged blanket off again, and somehow gotten her pillow jammed beneath her elbow. The skin between her shoulder-blades itches. Her limbs ache from a day full of safe-guarding smuggled goods away from the docks.
She sits up, slowly, presses the palm of her hand against the skin of her brow. The sound of her own breathing is loud inside of her skull. Hollow. For a moment she simply sits there, not really thinking, too awake for her own good. Then Bethany shifts on the bed, a soft murmur of discontent passing through her lips.
She needs to get out.
Mother's folded her clothes neatly onto the chest in the far corner of the room. She grabs her pants from the top, and slips into them before padding across the room. The door opens without a sound, thankfully, and she gathers up her boots from their place beside it, yanking them on and shoving her nightshirt into her trousers. The front door is heavier. Creaks a bit when she opens it. But a brief pause to listen for the sounds of stirring reveals no distress, or movement, and so she darts out, the night air hitting her full on the face as she steps onto the stairwell. Around her, the Lowtown slums are still, shadowed, and dark. From a distance she can hear a low wail. The sounds of an argument. Somewhere, a cat yowls, and glass breaks against a hard surface.
Kirkwall's not a safe place at night.
Unarmed, she daren't go far. If they weren't in a city – and, truth be told, she hasn't been in many – then she would probably take to wandering. She and Carver had walked often when they'd been camped at Ostagar, whenever they weren't too tired for it. Carver was always restless. Never content, never satisfied, never at piece with his lot in life.
The cold air clings to the skin of her bare arms, and settles over her like a shroud. Bethany and Mother miss Carver. They speak of him often, their faces long and sad, brows furrowed, voices distant and anguished. Her little sister misses her twin. Her mother misses her son.
How could you let him…?
She shuts her eyes tightly, folds her arms over the tops of her knees. She can't let it touch her. She can't. Mother goes to pieces over Carver every day, it seems, and Bethany's always forgetting that she doesn't come as the other half of a pair anymore, and she has to be the strong one. Maker knows, Uncle Gamlen's not going to pick them all up and dust them off if they stumble.
She's the eldest, just like she's always been, and that's not going to change. Even if she's already failed at it one time too many. She wasn't the one who had the special relationship with Carver. He was just… her brother, and that was a lot, no doubt, but he was Bethany's twin brother, he was mother's champion little trouble-maker, he was Father's only son. The Hawke men. Both of them gone now. She has to be the strong one, it's her duty and it only makes sense that it's her. Even if Mother blames her for it. Even if she should have been the one to charge that blasted creature.
There are wet smears across her arms. Damp little spots spread over the thighs of her trousers. She shifts, and brushes the corners of her eyes with her thumbs, letting out a shaky breath as they come away wet. Carver's voice, ages younger and a million miles away, rings through her head.
It's not fair.
And it isn't, she thinks. She couldn't have known how that would have played out. She'd been where she always was – up at the front, on the look-out for danger, and it was pure reflex to jump aside when the ogre had charged them. If it had been anyone else in her position, she thinks, she wouldn't have blamed them. It was a moment, a split instant which none of them could have stopped, and then Carver was dead. Dead. Not hurt, not lost, not unconscious. Gone beyond helping.
But really, it's her fault. She knows it, and Mother knows it, because they both know that Carver was her responsibility. Hers to chase after, hers to keep in line, hers to watch while Father taught Bethany and Mother made sure the locals liked them enough to lie if they ever discovered the truth. She flexes the muscles of her right hand, and she remembers what it felt like to hold his. To tug him along as he trailed after her, most of the time reluctantly dragging his heels. She remembers the first time he'd refused to take her hand. I'm too old for that. It hadn't hurt, of course, not even a little bit – she'd just been proud of him for growing up some. That was all.
There's a shaky, soft, half-broken sound in her ears, and it takes her a moment to realize that she's the one making it. It slips in under the current of the slums' nighttime noise, falling away amidst the miserable poverty all around. She bites her lip to halt it, and wraps her arms around herself, and waits until the worst of it has passed.
Have to be strong, she reminds herself. It's too late for Carver, just like it was too late for Father. The only thing she can do is look after Mother and Bethany. Make certain that nothing happens to either of them. Or Uncle Gamlen, she supposes – he's family, anyway, and they owe him something for his help. Aveline, too, if only because they've come here together, and fought together. Although Aveline's not the sort to take to being looked after, she thinks.
A few minutes pass. Her breathing calms, and her head feels dull and heavy, and unsatisfied with her tears. She sucks in a deep breath. It's a simple matter, then, to put all aside, packing it into little boxes and locking it away someplace where it can't assault her anymore. When it's done, she woodenly lifts herself up again, and slips back in through the door. The house is quiet and dark and smells like old cabbage. It's a simple enough matter to crawl her way back onto the floor, curling up beneath her blanket, staring up at the moonlight filtering through the cracks in the ceiling. At least it's not raining, she decides, as she closes her eyes, and solemnly wills herself back to sleep. Tomorrow morning, she'll get up, dust herself off, and go back to the business of repaying debts. She'll keep Bethany from the Templars and try not to strain under their workload, and if she has to, she'll crack a few heads to make herself feel better. She'll try and get her mother to smile and distract Gamlen from spending all of their coin on drink, and it will be fine.
It will be fine.
She closes her eyes, and like an ill-timed ghost, her hand trails over the crinkled edges of the blanket. The worn fabric catches over the rough skin of her palm. It's not at all like a hand, not at all like fingertips.
When the first grey tendrils of dawn sink in through the windows, she sees them, lying on the floor with her eyes wide open, both hands clenched into fists.
It will be fine, she lies to herself.