Very minimal dialogue in this, but I kinda like the weight it gives Hawke's memories. It's effectively one long stream of thought or recollection from Hawke, so it makes a kind of sense she focused on events in a way that highlighted how they made her feel, or affected her, rather than a detailed replay. It also shows quite how significant Bethany's words to her were, at that particular moment, in altering their relationship from that point on.
To understand who Marian Hawke was, you had to go back to who she'd been, in the beginning.
Marian remembered her childhood being very short. She was only…what…three? Perhaps four when the twins, Carver and Bethany were born? And Bethany inheriting their father's magical bloodline changed everything.
Father could control his powers. They'd had to be cautious, just in case, but father was smart, and trained, so they'd never had to move, or hide. But Bethany had changed all that.
She remembered hating Bethany for that, at first. Or…trying to. Her powers never fully manifested until she was ten, or eleven, but there were sporadic incidents, uncontrollable accidents that were simply wont to happen because children were emotional, and temperamental, and her magic responded to that.
And Carver was so gifted at pushing all her buttons, as children. It was hard to make Bethany understand, at that age, that she couldn't push back because if she did, she might accidentally burn down their home, freeze the surrounding landscape, or summon a demon to kill her twin brother because she was upset with him.
They moved often, from place to place, always staying on the edges of villages and settlements they tried to set up home in. And for some years, Marian hated Bethany for making their lives that way.
She hated that she couldn't have friends, either because they were always moving or because they couldn't risk exposing the fact that several members of their family were apostates. She hated that father and mother expected her to look out for her brother and sister. She hated that she'd been expected to grow up so fast, while Bethany, and Carver by proxy, were allowed to remain children a little longer.
She thought it would have been easier if she could just feel nothing about her sister. Nothing. Nothing at all. But she did feel things. Just looking at her made her feel things and she hated it. Her feeling weren't what they wanted them to be, so she tried to make them into anger, into hate, into bitterness. It wasn't as easy, and she hated that too.
Bethany was special. Bethany was fragile. Bethany needed extra care. Bethany needed protecting, father often told her.
Marian couldn't take out her frustrations on Bethany, not with father spending so much time and energy on her, training and teaching her, and mother doting on her as she did, so instead, she picked at Carver. Poked, teased, goaded, competed, condescended, nearly every chance she got.
She'd been so cruel, back then.
But as so often with life, things changed, and they changed very quickly, one day
Father, Malcolm Hawke, died.
He had been ill for several years, but it came and went, and they, perhaps he himself too, had hoped he could survive like that, indefinitely. To train and prepare Bethany, to try and protect and support them all.
A piece of mother died with him, that day. Leandra was never quite the same. She tried to hold them together, to work and support them, but she'd leaned on Malcolm as much as the rest of them. Carver withdrew, becoming insular, and combative, and Bethany was heartbroken.
Marian hurt as much as the rest of them, but Marian had a choice to make. And it was only then, in her seventeenth year, that she'd realised Father had been trying to prepare her for it for some time.
She remembered father's passing so clearly. He'd gone quietly, in his sleep one night. No last words, no painful exit, no long goodbyes or parting messages. She'd never been able to decide if it was better that way, or not. Sometimes she wished he'd just been able to state clearly what he wanted her to do, even though she knew.
She'd been looking out for them for years, in one way or another. She been bitter, and angry about it, but she had. She'd worked around their various homes. She had the skills she needed to care and provide for them. And she'd been training with the sword for years, she knew how to protect them.
Marian already remembered so little of her life before Bethany was born. Her entire life since then was defined by her little sister. Her safety, her education, her training, her wellbeing. She had been the centre of their tiny, insignificant universe.
For a long time, she thought she'd hated her little sister for that. She'd even earned a scar on her face that she expected she'd carry all her life, after trying to defend her from a local bully.
She thought she'd hated Bethany for the difficulties in their lives. She'd tried to hate Bethany for the difficulties in their lives. But…
For as long as she could remember, Bethany had looked at her with nothing short of adoration, affection, unadulterated awe and admiration. And it shamed her, shook her, sharply, deeply, that she tried to think and feel the way she did about her sister.
She remembered the exact moment she gave up all pretence that she'd ever felt anything other than love for Bethany, and an unflinching, rooted desire to protect and guard her, planted deep inside her by her father, back when they'd first discovered her magical powers.
They'd gathered together in a clearing in the woods, not far from their home, for Malcolm Hawke's funeral pyre. They all stood somewhat apart, dealing with the loss in their own way. Mother crying openly, racked by grief. Carver standing off alone, at the edge of the glow of the fire, silent and still.
Marian stood slightly back from her mother, staring hard at the flames. Her eyes were wet, though she couldn't tell if it was tears, or the heat of the pyre, stinging them. She hurt, she hurt so much, but she didn't know how to show it. She wasn't sure she could.
And then Bethany had appeared close at her side, quietly. She didn't say anything, but Marian felt her hand fumbling, reaching for her own, hanging at her side.
Marian looked down at her, fourteen now, just starting to show signs of the woman she would become as her body matured out of its childish shape. Her long dark hair framed her pale, clear features. Her soft, blue eyes found hers.
"We'll be okay, won't we?" Bethany asked, in a whisper.
It wasn't so much that things changed then, as that she simply accepted what she had been fighting to deny for the past dozen years or so. All the feelings that bubbled and surged and threatened to overflow, the ones she tried to beat and bludgeon and force into hate. But she never could make it stick. It just wasn't natural. The hate faded away, as if it had never really been there.
Bethany was her little sister, and she loved her. And she would give her life to protect her. She would do everything she could to do what father had tried to do for them all.
It didn't seem like a choice anymore, at that point. But Marian didn't mind, as she took Bethany's hand, squeezing it tightly as they watched the pyre burn in the night.
Marian Hawke chose to grow up again.