It's clear something's wrong with Hawke, right from the start.
She doesn't want to see her daughter, gets angry whenever she's reminded of her and seems catatonic most of the time.
The child cries for her mother, for the warmth of her embrace, but receives no love or attention. The woman the healer had brought in now resides with the healer, while Hawke herself stays in the house next door. If she can hear her daughter cry, she shows no sign of if, instead she only sits in a chair and looks out the window at the village. It seems to Sebastian that she doesn't see anything, doesn't know or care what goes on at the other side of the door.
Sebastian and Dareth both try to talk to her, but not about the child, never about the child. Sometimes Hawke mentions Kirkwall or Lothering, former friends and comrades the family she no longer has and the brother she no longer knows is alive or dead, the Wardens are always on the move, doesn't know where he is, doesn't know if he cares.
She rarely mentions Fenris, but she swaps between his names – Fenris and Leto are the same but not – every time she does.
Dareth will later tell Sebastian that he knows the difference now, between Fenris and Leto – that Leto was the first and last part, the young boy before being a slave and the man who was finally free from his ties, and that Fenris was the tormented man she met in Kirkwall, the man who was an escaped slave but still wore his shackles because he never knew that he could remove them until she showed him how.
Hawke's hair is shabby, hangs down in her eyes when she bends her head forward, matt and lifeless and unnoticed by her.
They try to get her to bathe, but it turns into her sitting in a chair or – if they're lucky – in the tub, only the goose bumps on her skin revealing any reaction to the cold water when they pour it over her.
From the erratic conversations which most often lead to nowhere in particular and leaves her looking even more fragile than she already does, Dareth manages to extract what she used to do before, when she was resting, curled up in bed or in front of the fire.
So Sebastian gathers the few books in the Chantry, and others again from villagers who are willing to loan them to the kind Brother who looks after them all. And if they're somehow able to resists his roughish charm, he sends Dareth to them, because he's yet to meet someone who is immune to the doe-like eyes and his eagerness to help Hawke get better.
They never call her Hawke though, speak of her only as Marian and let no one but the healer and nursemaid see her for fear they'll learn she is the Champion of Kirkwall and the unwanted and not needed attention it might bring her. Not even Arl Teagan knows it's her, which is for the best considering the attention that might bring her.
Hawke grows thinner every day, until her cheeks are hollow and sallow again, until Sebastian fears her body will soon be unable to take her weight as she moves between her chair and bed. Her muscles are completely gone, no sign of them left, Hawke's entire body wilting away like a flower without water and sunlight.
Neither Sebastian nor Dareth gives up on her, trying as best they can to make her better, but she's getting less sleep, spending up to hours each day and night crying or on the verge of tears. Sebastian tries to pray with her, but she falters quickly, unable to focus for more than a short while at a time. She almost doesn't speak at all, and when she does it's to complain about her stomach and head aching.
They try, carefully not to anger her, to tell her that it hurts because she doesn't eat enough, doesn't drink enough, be it water or healing brews, but she gets angry all the same, attempting to shout at them to get out, to leave her alone, to stop pestering her, but there's no heat to the anger in her voice.
Sebastian looks at Dareth and sees his own worry and fear reflected in the warm brown eyes, and he hates that the boy should have to suffer this.
-
Three weeks after the birth of her daughter, Hawke leaves.
Sebastian brings Dareth to see her, to attempt again – as they have every day – to get Hawke to eat something, anything, can't stop trying, but she's gone.
They ask around the village, trying to see if anyone's seen her, heard anything, know anything but they don't.
At last, at the second to last door, they find an elderly woman who claim she saw a figure leave the house Hawke was staying in. The figure had left in the middle of the night, and, well, she hadn't seen much, but had heard the creaking of the door and seen movement away from the house but hadn't thought something was wrong until asked.
Because of course all of Redcliffe knew there was something off, something not quite right about the woman who had come staggering in during the worst winter storm the village had seen in a couple decades with a boy in hand. Whispers were abound after they never saw her out of the house, and never with her child. Something's not right with that one.
Sebastian sends out letters to other Chantries, asking about Hawke but never mentioning a name, but gets nothing concrete back, only mentions of vague mentions overheard on the streets, but never enough to be sure it's her.
"Is she gone, Sebastian? Do you think she'll be back?"
"I don't know, Dareth. We'll just have to take care of her daughter either way, and never tell her that her mother never wanted her, not until she's ready. Promise me that?"
"I promise."