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It had taken Mayra Hawke three years to come to terms with her sister being taken by the circle. Three years to decide she couldn’t sit back idly while more mages were made tranquil, while the threat loomed over her head that Bethany could be next. It was a threat that made her bite her tongue in the Gallows, and quietly stew. When the letter came asking for help, to smear a templar, to to save a mage, she only hesitated a moment. When she didn’t get caught, she breathed a sigh of relief and promised herself that the next time wouldn’t have that hesitation.
It took three years for Mayra Hawke to convince Anders to move in with her in Hightown. Three years of loaning him her desk, of waking up to a cold bed and cold fear resting in her gut. “I love you,” she whispered, meaning something more than he heard. He worried so badly about her, the risk she ran being with him, an apostate, as if she hadn’t seen what could happen first hand. He never heard her, though, when she promised to be there. He didn’t see the key she gave him as the vow she had wanted it to be. Support. Protection. A promise that when his manifesto was complete, she’d help him spread it. A promise that all he needed to do was ask, and she would be more than just someone to share his bed.
Some things three years wasn’t long enough for. Some losses she had learned to live with only most days. There was a father, and a brother, left behind in a land she never planned to return to. A mother, who died in her arms while she was helpless to stop it. One year, four years, seven, more. No matter how long, she knew there was no goal for her to reach for those deaths. She’d done all she could for them.
When she clung to Anders’ battle for mage rights, for a better way, she could admit to herself it was in part because she needed something to fight. Three years playing Champion, trying to avoid a civil war for as long as possible, hoping for a peaceful way for it all to end. Three years, and she couldn’t stop the sinking feeling that her time trying for the peaceful solution was over.