Ashes we were, and ashes we become.
On the day Marian turns twenty, they put her father in a coffin.
A malady of the blood, the healers tell her mother, most common in blood mages and those with slight builds. Malcolm Hawke is neither – the strongest, most steadfast man Hawke has ever known. Will ever know.
Half the village shows up at the funeral. Marian doesn't.
Instead, she takes her father's sword down from its pegs on the wall, slings it awkwardly over her shoulder, and runs.
The rains have been heavy this year; mud squishes under her feet, and insects startled from their hiding places fly up around her. The river is thick and swollen, but she jumps it without a thought, letting her feet take her wherever they will.
When she can no longer hear the sounds of Lothering behind her, she rests her father's sword against a tree and cries.
Bethany is the crybaby of the family. It's not that Marian never cries, but she never mastered the art of using it as a weapon like Bethany did. Marian's tears are ugly and turn her face red and her eyes puffy and her nose runny, and the only people she ever lets see them are Mother and the twins and Father.
Father never cried. But Marian's not as strong as he was.
When she's exhausted her tears she finds her feet again, and wraps her hands around the hilt of Malcolm Hawke's sword. He hadn't used it as often as his staff, of course, but the staff wasn't a suitable weapon outside of their home.
The leather is worn in all the wrong places for Marian's hands, and the steel blade is nearly as long as she is tall. She hefts it up as well as she can, trying to balance its enormous weight. The best she can do is a staggering vertical slice; on the downsweep her arms give out and the end of the blade plunges with a squelch into the mud.
At twenty years old she is as tall and filled out as she will probably ever get. She could build up muscle if she worked at it, but it will never change the fact that Father's sword is much too big for her and she will never be able to wield it properly.
Marian sags against a tree and wishes for the first time in her life that she'd been born a boy.
She isn't built like her father – she has Leandra's wiry grace and flaring curves – but people have always told her she is just like him, with a compassion for those in need. The similarities end there, however – Carver inherited Father's strength, and Bethany his quiet willpower and magical gift, but all Marian has to go on is charm. She is Mother's girl – a dutiful helper, taking dance lessons from the pretty Chantry sister at Dane's Refuge and memorizing the Chant. Father has always been the protector of the family.
But maybe that has to be Marian's job, now.
All things in this world are finite.
What one man gains, another has lost.
-Transfigurations 1:5
Marian doesn't go back to Lothering that day, or the next day, or the day after that.
Before she knows it she is somewhere in South Reach, in a village much bigger than Lothering on the north end of the Southron Hills. Farmers in their fields call out greetings to her as she passes, and she waves back, letting a tiny smile lift the corners of her mouth for the first time since her father fell ill.
Marian doesn't have much coin, but her feet hurt and she's tired of sleeping on the ground, so when she spots the swinging sign for an inn she doesn't hesitate. The innkeeper takes pity on her (or perhaps she smells a lot worse than she realizes) and draws her up a hot bath, and Marian falls asleep that night without any effort at all.
The next day she tracks down the village swordsmith.
The old man takes one look at the giant sword on her back and raises a knowing eyebrow. "Looking for something a bit more to size?"
Marian just nods. The smith examines her wrists (thin) and the muscles of her arms (sorely lacking) and shakes his head. "Dunno that I have any swords on hand that would be light enough for you. Anything lighter than steel breaks sooner 'n' holds, but if you go too small there's not much point to having a blade. I could forge something to order –"
Certain she doesn't have nearly enough coin for a made-to-order sword, she shakes her head emphatically.
" – but I've a few daggers you might try."
Marian doesn't know the first thing about knife combat – the only teacher she's ever had is her father, who preferred to bash things if he couldn't magic them away – but then again, she doesn't know much about combat at all, so why not? She listens to the smith's advice as he yammers on about stabbing daggers versus slicing daggers and reverse grips versus standard grips, and finally selects a pair of matched knives the length of her forearm. It takes all the coin she has, but she finally has a weapon she can use.
As she goes to leave, the smith says "I didn't catch your name."
Marian hesitates, then simply says, "It's Hawke."
At last did the Maker
From the living world
Make men. Immutable, as the substance of the earth,
With souls made of dream and idea, hope and fear,
Endless possibilities.
-Threnodies 5:6
Re-inventing oneself, Marian thinks, is much easier when one can start fresh.
Outside Lothering, where no one knows her, it is a simple thing to leave behind Marian, the farmer's daughter, and take up the mask of Hawke. Hawke can be whoever Marian wants her to be, and eventually has defined characteristics and personality quirks. Marian is quiet, and a bit shy; Hawke is unafraid of strangers and carries herself with pride. Marian had only kind words when she spoke; Hawke is charming and a bit sarcastic, with a witty tongue (and maybe Marian's had that tongue all along?) – and eventually the line between Hawke and Marian blurs until she doesn't just wear Hawke's mask – she is the mask.
It takes her a long time to realize that she has become her father.
The days away from Lothering become weeks and eventually months. Hawke discovers a wanderlust in herself. She encounters the peaceful wandering Dalish in the Brecilian Forest (though she gets the feeling she isn't entirely welcome there, so she doesn't linger.) She stays far away from the crags of Dragon's Peak and finds herself in Denerim, a city so large it might as well be its own nation.
The Imperial Highway takes her west into Amaranthine, where she uses her new daggers for the first time, against spiders the size of mabari; Marian might have been afraid, but Hawke charges straight in without hesitation, and discovers that fighting is just like a dance, really, all movement and grace and fluid motion. Her heart pounds and she smells like spider entrails but at the end of the day, she's only a few scratches worse for wear and she has her first victory to show for it.
When she gets bored of the Highway she wanders north until she finds the coast, and the choppy waters of the Waking Sea. It's not the ocean proper, Hawke knows, but it is the first time she's ever seen the open water and she imagines that the salt air tastes like freedom.
Her travels take her to Lake Calenhad, too, and she glimpses the Circle Tower rising above the water. It is sobering to think that her father would have been trapped here had he ever been caught; the possibility is still very real for Bethany.
She has heard the Lothering templars talk of 'safety' and 'protection;' she knows they believe it is better for mages that way, but to her the Tower looks not like a sanctuary but a prison.
Hawke swears to herself that she will protect Bethany from this future if it takes everything she has.
With the thought comes an inner fire that she didn't know she possessed; and right on its heels, a sense of duty. With their father dead, Hawke is all her mother and the twins have left. She has never been more certain of anything in her life.
So after an entire year, Hawke turns for home.
Come to me, child, and I shall embrace you.
In my arms lies Eternity.
-Andraste 14:11
Returning to Lothering is easier than Hawke expected.
Perhaps it is because no one recognizes her – she's chopped her hair short around her ears, and built up an extra layer of muscle in her year away. Marian would never have walked into Lothering with a two-handed sword on her back and a pack full of daggers. Hawke doesn't even bat an eye.
Hawke has changed, but Lothering has not. And instead of going first to her mother's house, Hawke heads for Dane's Refuge.
It's exactly as she remembered it, the smell of pipe-smoke and mead mixed in with days-old stew and firewood. Danal seems to have not moved an inch from his post behind the counter, and greets her as she walks up. "Haven't seen you around here before, stranger. Welcome to Dane's Refuge, I'm Danal."
She grins. "Hawke."
Danal does a double-take, and conversation around the tavern dies down as people recognize her. "Malcolm Hawke's little girl?"
"That's me," she says.
"Well I'll be damned," he says, and slides her a drink on the house.
The rumors of her return haven't quite gotten all the way around the village by the time she makes it home. Hawke takes a deep breath and opens the door, walking in like she's been gone a few hours rather than a whole year.
"Mother," she calls. "I'm back!"
Bethany comes flying out of nowhere and throws her arms around Hawke's neck; Carver doesn't even offer a second glance but can't hide a smile. Hawke's mother drops the rolling pin she'd been holding and bursts into tears, and just like that, she's home.
What you have created, no one can tear asunder.
-Trials 1:10
If Hawke's family find her transformation odd, they never question it.
Not that they don't talk about it; everyone in the village does, for that matter, wondering (sometimes even to her face) how Malcolm's eldest left the village a lost little girl and came back a tenacious protector. Hawke just smiles and shrugs, sometimes with a witty comment or two for good measure.
She takes up where her father left off teaching Carver – how to read an opponent, how to wield a blade like an extension of the arm. At first Carver (being Carver) rebels, but once he realizes the extent of what Hawke's learned in a year, he shuts up.
There's not a whole lot Hawke can teach Bethany of magic, but she can teach her how to make herself unnoticed; how to hide amongst a crowd, and move without being seen. Anonymity, Father had always said, was an apostate's best defense. Hawke may not understand magic, but she does understand stealth.
When the twins turn sixteen, Hawke and her mother decide they are old enough to inherit what's left of Malcolm's legacy. The longbar blade that was always too big for Hawke fits easily in Carver's hands, and Malcolm's birchcore staff looks so natural in Bethany's grip that it seems like she's had it her whole life.
Malcolm may be gone, but his family lives on, and for a time, they have peace.
In the absence of light, shadows thrive.
-Threnodies 8:21
Then the Blight comes.
At first Hawke passes the rumors off as just that – rumor – but then the Chasind that frequent Lothering start coming back in fewer numbers with wild tales of darkspawn and corrupted beasts and taint.
Soon enough, recruiters sweep through the village, telling of King Cailan's army massing at Ostagar alongside the Fereldan Grey Wardens.
Hawke puts two and two together – Chasind from the woods, and an army at Ostagar – and knows the darkspawn will come from the south and if the army falls, Lothering will be next. And so when she walks into Dane's Refuge that night, no one is really surprised when she puts her name down on the recruiters' roster.
It does surprise everyone, however, when Carver walks in right behind her and does the same.
They argue about it extensively that night – she wants him to stay home, to protect Mother and Bethany, but Carver insists that the army needs all the help they can get and if Hawke is going, so is he.
And the truth of the matter is, Carver is old enough to make his own decision, and Father would have let him go, so Hawke caves, making Bethany promise to keep a low profile and remember her escape routes.
They are separated at Ostagar.
Hawke really should have seen it coming, but overlooked the difference between her and Carver's skill sets and battle experience. Carver gets put in the vanguard, and Hawke is sent to the King's own scouts, to replace the many killed or missing.
Hawke's patrol is assigned to the Korcari Wilds. In the end, it is the only thing that saves her life.
The day before the battle at Ostagar sees Hawke so far behind enemy lines that she can't even see the beacon towers. Her lighter frame lets her climb higher up in the trees than the rest of the scouts, and so she is ordered to keep count of the darkspawn army.
Only then does she understand why so many scouts have gone missing – because there are so many darkspawn that the army has no hope of victory.
Hawke holds out hope that the Grey Wardens have some way to take them down – that is, at least, until she spots the ogres. Large as houses, with horns as big around as Hawke's waist – and there are hundreds of them, scattered among the masses of hurlocks and genlocks.
She steals back to her patrol and gives them the news, and that night, she becomes a deserter.
By the time she reaches the gates, the advance lines of the darkspawn have already arrived; Cailan's army is holding their own, for now, but Hawke knows what's coming and so she barrels through the ranks, screaming Carver's name for all she's worth over the din of battle. And by some miracle of the Maker, she finds him – cutting down genlocks with a fury that makes Hawke proud. Quick as a flash, she helps him dispatch the last, and then yanks him back a few lines until they are away from the chaos.
"What in flames –" he begins, but Hawke isn't having any argument today.
"We're leaving," she says shortly, dragging him towards the gates, "there's a horde on the way and there's no way we win -"
"That's desertion!" Carver shouts.
Hawke swears. "I'd rather desert the army than desert our family," she yells, and just in that moment, the brunt of the darkspawn horde arrives.
The Hawke siblings are nearly trampled underfoot as Cailan's army surges forward, holding the line, and Hawke looks automatically to the signal tower where she knows the beacon is supposed to be – and just as she fears it won't come, the flames burn hot and bright against the night sky.
A cheer resounds from the men, and for a moment Hawke entertains staying out the fight – Loghain's cavalry charge is coming – but the moment drags on, and on, and becomes minutes rather than seconds, and the flanking charge never comes.
Cries of confusion go up from the ranks, and Carver's face falls in despair, and Hawke knows in that split-second that they have already lost. This time Carver doesn't resists as she pulls, and together they sprint away from the wails of dying men.
Maker, though the darkness comes upon me,
I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm.
-Trials 1:10
Years later, Varric always begins Hawke's story with the escape from Lothering.
"It's the right place to start a hero tale," he tells her. "A terrible war, a daring escape, a tragic death and then a ray of hope. That's where heroes get their start."
Hawke lets him have his epic story, but in her mind, the true story started long before Varric claims – with the death of a father, and a skinny girl too small to lift his sword.