Hawke couldn't sleep. The bed she was lying in was hardly more than a piece of wood. She had given her Mother and her sibling her two blankets so they wouldn't be cold. And since she couldn't sleep, Raven decided it would be amusing to wave her hand back and forth over a candle, lighting and extinguishing the tiny flame with each pass.
She chuckled upon realizing that there was enough light to make shadow puppets on the wall—she was about to form the mabari puppet that an old friend had taught her when she heard it.
A sharp inhale, all too familiar a sound: sharp and pained and panicked.
It was the sound someone made whenever they died.
Raven launched straight up in bed, withdrawing her favorite dagger from its sheath, and promptly smacked her head into the roof.
"Shit!" she cursed, rubbing her forehead. Restraining a groan, she descended more gracefully to the ground. Her head throbbed from where it had made contact with the wood… there would be a nasty bruise in the morning.
Once she was standing on the grimy floor of Gamlen's so-called house, she used the little candle that was still alight and looked in the beds below her own.
Mother was still sleeping peacefully, unaware of the sound that had startled Raven so badly. But when she stepped closer to her brother's bed, she heard a malcontent voice grumble, "Get that bloody light out of my face."
"Carver," scolded Raven, raising an eyebrow. She knew that tone of voice. It was a voice of false bravado, of forced courage in the face of fear.
"Raven," he returned, his voice more condescending than before. "You don't need to be the hero all hours of the day. Go back to sleep."
Raven restrained a sigh at this comment. Despite the year they'd been working together in Kirkwall, their relationship hadn't gotten much better since leaving Lothering. And as he was her only sibling now, Raven did not wish him to resent her any longer.
But even though Carver had expressed his wish to be left alone, she couldn't just do that. He was her little brother, after all.
"That's not going to work on me this time," she whispered carefully. The last thing she wanted to do was wake up Mother. The poor woman rarely slept the entire night through, and Raven wasn't about to wake her from the first peaceful sleep she might've had in months.
Carver didn't say anything in reply—Raven took the opportunity to take another step towards her brother's bed. He was shirtless, but despite the chilly winter-spring air, he was sweating. His fists were clenched, and his legs were curled to his chest.
Hesitantly, Raven placed a hand on his arm.
He flinched.
With a sigh, she asked, "What happened, Carver? You can talk to me."
Raven was met with another silence. It took a moment before he groaned, pulled the itchy and ineffective quilt around his shoulders, and snapped, "It's nothing."
"It's certainly not if it's preventing your sleep," she returned evenly.
This time, Carver groaned louder and looked over his shoulder to glare at his older sister. One piercing amber eye met her own; narrowing it, he insisted, "I don't need your help!"
Raven placed the candle on the table. Now that her eyes had adjusted to the surrounding blackness, she noticed he was shivering, loath as he was to show it.
She tiptoed to the tiny fireplace at the end of their beds. Raven took a deep breath and extended her fingers towards the twigs stacked in the hearth. At her command, a sprig of fire leapt from her extended hand and lit the sparse bits of wood. As the fire licked at its food, she stepped back towards the triple bunk-beds and stood, her arms crossed.
When Carver heard the silence, he glanced over his shoulder again only to scoff upon seeing Raven standing protectively next to his bed. Apparently tired of the conversation, he carefully maneuvered himself to face her and narrowed his eyes.
"I. Don't. Need. Your. Help," he stated clearly, but he too was quiet for Mother's sake.
Raven raised an eyebrow again and leaned back. "Your shaking hands say differently."
Carver instantly stashed his hands underneath the blanket. Seeing the slightest of smirks on his sister's face, he flopped on his back on the wood that constituted as a bed. After closing his eyes, he asked, "Why are you like this? Why can't you just leave me alone?"
"Because you are my brother," Raven answered simply. "My family."
As she said these words, she moved so that she was standing right next to his bed. Taking advantage of the silence, she said, "You'd never know how helpful talking about things can be."
"And you would?" he challenged.
Raven nodded. "What do you think Mother and I do whenever you're out of the house? Gamlen's certainly not one for intelligent conversation."
That seemed to cheer Carver up a little. Though he kept his eyes closed, a light smirk traced his lips. At last, he grunted, "Fair point."
Raven chuckled lightly. "So will you loosen up, or will I have to make you?"
She poked him in the side, the ratty quilt drawn up around his chest providing no protection. Carver jolted and nearly hit his head on the top of the bed the way Raven had crashed hers into the ceiling, which made her laugh.
Although he was glaring slightly, Carver sighed dramatically and groaned, "If I tell you, will you go away afterward?"
"Cross my heart."
"Good." His retort was not as exasperated as Raven thought it would be, however. After a moment of gathering himself, Carver sat up in his bed—he had to hunch over, as there was little room to sit in the triple bunk-beds—and confessed, "I had another nightmare. Worse than the others."
"I expected as much," responded Raven gravely. "If I may ask, what was this one about?"
Carver ran a hand through his normally neat black hair, making it stick up in all directions. His bloodshot eyes were somewhat lost as he answered, "I dreamed of Beth… of that disgusting creature smashing her against the ground and throwing her into the rocks like she was nothing. I—I tried to make my legs move, but they were stuck in the ground. All I could do was watch that thing murder our sister."
Raven felt a lump gather in her throat. She missed Bethany terribly… it had been a hard year without her. They weren't even able to give her a proper funeral.
"It was like a repeat of that very day." Carver's voice was heavy, as if these were thoughts that hadn't been borne of the nightmare. "I wanted to do something to… something to prevent her from dying. But I couldn't. And I don't know if it was my dream or my own cowardice that kept me from charging it."
At this, Raven put her hands on her hips. Her lips pursed, she exclaimed, "Carver, you are one of the bravest people I've ever met, and I'm not saying that because you're my brother. I say that because throughout all of our jobs this year, you have put our countrymen ahead of yourself. You've striven to do what is right, and that takes great courage. You cannot blame yourself for what happened. The best we can do is… live the way Bethany would've wanted us to. We owe it to her to make her proud, wherever she and Father are."
Carver grunted to himself and scratched his head, as if wondering whether he dared to believe Raven's words. When he looked at her again, however, he let out a long breath.
"Well… she wouldn't want us moping like this, that's for sure," he conceded, eyes down at his hands. He was twiddling his thumbs; an old habit he only picked up during the nights he was most on end. Raven found herself wondering how many nights he had resurrected this habit while stationed at Ostagar.
"I quite agree," the elder Hawke heard herself saying. "And in the end… we killed that beast. And we'll kill any more that we see."
"Hopefully there won't be more," he grumbled, back to his default faux bravery and gruffness. "But if there are… I call first dibs."
That made Raven laugh. She reached out and ruffled her brother's hair—Carver yelped in dismay—before murmuring, "Glad I could help. Now get back to sleep, brother. Our last day on the job is tomorrow, and then we'll be free men."
Carver nodded and lay back down on his bed as Raven carefully extinguished the fire she had created in the hearth. Once the last of the embers had died, she climbed the flimsy ladder back up to the top bunk and closed her eyes, knowing that even if she and her family were living in a dump, at least they were safe.
Hello, dear readers! If you've reached the bottom of this page that means you're wonderful! Thank you for reading!
As you might have seen in the description for this story, this isn't necessarily a story with plot; it's going to be a bunch of one-shots centered around Hawke's relationships with her loving family and endearing companions, as well as all the mischief they might get up to outside of what we see in the game. There will be action, romance, friendships, and whatever else I feel like writing about! Huzzah!
If you like what you read or have any constructive comments or found a pesky typo (banes of my eXiStEnCe), feel free to leave your thoughts in that there white box below. I'll try and update soon but I have two other stories I'm currently working on and two jobs for the summer! So no promises ;) Except for the one where I shall do my best!
Until next time!
~Avalain Nightshade
