Chapter Text
When the ogre ran at Bethany, and the only thing between her, their mother, and the beast was wide open, blighted landscape, Garrett Hawke did the one thing that seemed to make sense: he went into cardiac arrest.
He didn’t actually- but he did use that as an excuse later for not acting sooner. Later, when he recounted his tale in the Hanged Man at a table full of friends and siblings; drinks, money, and bad stories flowing between them all. In his retelling, Marian was fierce and relentless with her attacks, covering Carver as he went in and cut down the mighty beast, the two of them a well-oiled killing machine. Their mother cheered them on from the sidelines, where he sat with Bethany, tending to her wounds.
In reality, the ogre charged Bethany, who tossed a prayer and a fireball at it’s towering form. The ogre, in return, smacked her across the ground, causing her body to go limp as she flew backwards a short distance. Their mother screamed, the dog barked, time seemed to screech to a shuddering halt, and Garrett acted on a mix of fear, anger, and instinct- he slammed his staff into the ground and built a wall of ice between the monster and his baby sister’s bruised body. At the same time, Carver used that as a cue to take action, yelling at the beast to get it’s attention before charging it.
-
Time was moving painfully slowly for Marian. The world seemed to be incredibly far away, and her body felt paralyzed. She watched the scene unfold before her with a growing sense of doom; panic’s cold, dead fingers grasped her throat, causing her breath to come to her in short, shallow bursts. When Carver’s cry of anguish and anger ripped through the air as he charged the beast, the world snapped back like a rubber band. Her feet felt cold, and she still felt paralyzed, but as she watched the ogre make a move to hit her baby brother, she felt her voice crawl its way desperately out of her throat, and she screamed, whipped her staff forward, and shot lightning at the beast. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought to herself, “Lightning, huh? Never done lightning before,” and the ogre reeled it’s, now charred, hand back, taking a moment to acknowledge its new opponent, successfully creating an opening for Carver to hack at.
-
Bethany noted to herself that, despite the immense pain overwhelming her senses, she was pleased to find that she wasn’t bleeding, so at least she probably won’t catch the Blight. She also noted that both her mother and Garrett were hovering over her. “Well,” she thought to herself, “that’s nice.” Both of them were saying something to her, but nothing aside from ‘immense pain’ was currently registering in her brain at the moment. Her body felt broken, not right. Her head ached with a pain she couldn’t comprehend, and she barely registered that she could feel tears sliding down her face. “That’s interesting,” Bethany thought, “I’m not even sad.”
-
Garrett has the sudden, crushing realization that he isn’t equipped to handle this at all. He doesn’t know how to fix her, how to knit the bones back together. That was always Marian’s job. Garrett feels panic try and claw its way up his throat before whipping his head towards her and yells.
If his voice is pitched slightly higher than normal then nobody mentions it.
“Swap with me!” He calls. Marian's eyes flick towards him, her cold blue meeting his warm brown and she nods once, sharply. Garrett scoops up his staff and goes to run and take her place. He spares a quick glance behind him only to see his mother and sister, Bethany’s head resting in her lap, their faithful dog guarding them. Bethany looks dead, her eyes unfocused and staring at the sky above them, breaths coming as slow, painful wheezes. Garrett turns back ahead, focusing on the scene in front of him. The ogre’s arm is moving to make a swipe for Marian’s unguarded side, and he slides underneath it with a fireball to the lumbering beasts’ side. She whoops, unable to help herself despite the situation, and Garrett feels a bubble of hysterical laughter in his throat. He clamps it down, and skids to a stop behind Carver. His knees are a bit uncomfortable from the friction, but he pays it no mind and goes straight for offense, unleashing everything he’s got on the surrounding hoard and monster in front of them. He sends a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that his baby sister lives through this.
-
“Awful nice of you to drop in!” Carver yells to his older brother. Garrett gives a breathless laugh, fire flying through the air, shifting and curving around Carver as he swings his sword, striking true. The stench of burning, dead flesh is unpleasant and permeates the air. Carver wishes he’d switch to ice, or even rock. He isn't feeling too picky.
“Oh, you know! More of a slide, really?”
Carver laughs despite himself, for once welcoming the untimely wit of his older sibling. It makes it easier for him to let his mind slip into routine, for him to stop thinking about his twin, meters away from him, possibly dying, and empty his mind of all thoughts except how best to carve through the obstacles in front of him. His arms burn from swinging the giant greatsword around, but it’s a good burn, and that too, helps to keep him from falling into a state frantic desperation. He doesn’t want to think of Bethany dying, not now, not yet, not ever . By the will of the Maker, these darkspawn will pay.
-
Marian drops to her knees at Bethany’s side, hands hovering over her sister’s prone form. She hears their dog whine at her, as if he’s telling her to fix this mess already. She’s painfully aware of Bethany’s shallow breathing, of how clouded with fear and pain and confusion her eyes have become. Of the small, choked call to their dead father that she wheezes out. Marian doesn’t want to lose her baby sister, not to this, not to anything. She cracks her knuckles, itching with a warrant want, need, to do something, anything. She calls on her magic and the lessons the three of them learned together when they were young, back before Lothering and before the blight. She remembers a conversation they had together, and she remembers saying that, really, if they think about it, there’s no need to learn healing, as fighting is just preemptive healing. She remembers Father smiling tiredly at her, shaking his head at her pre-teen logic.
Another choked breath brings her back to the present and Marian admonishes herself for the fact that she keeps slipping today.
“Beth,” she calls to her little sister, voice soft, firm, vying for Bethany’s attention.
It works.
Kind of.
Bethany’s eyes glide over to her face, and Marian exhales sharply in relief. “Hey,” she forces an awkward smile, “I’m not great at this, so it’s gonna hurt a lot more before it starts to hurt less.” Bethany wheezes again in response, and Marian takes that as her way of saying “Yes, yes alright! Get to work you big oaf, before I die, here!”
-
Bethany’s mind is clouded, fuzzed, and she could swear she sees her father, off in the distance. Her heart aches and oh, how she misses him. “Not yet Bethy.” he says, his smile gentle. The same smile she sees on Garrett’s face, the same blue eyes as her sister, and suddenly, she can breathe. Her sister's face swims above her, mouth set in a straight line, the same way Mothers used to when she found out that she and Marian ruined their clothes wrestling with Carver and Gare again. “She looks so worried,” Bethany notes and goes to reach for Marian’s cheek, to let her know that she’s fine, but she finds that her arm is more of a dead weight than a limb, and instead ends up flopping it across her own body. Marian tenses and then looks up at her face, and Bethany can see that she’s about ready to cry. A wet nose presses her cheek, and she can feel a hand stroking through her hair. All at once, Bethany suddenly remembers how she was just slapped around by a giant, hulking darkspawn in a heroic attempt to protect their mother. 'That was probably stupid of me,' she thinks to herself.
“Remember,” she wheezes when she speaks, finding it difficult to talk with bruised ribs “Remember when you said we shouldn’t bother to learn healing?” Marian laughs, but it comes out more as a choked sob.
“Welcome back to the world of the living.” She says, cracking a watery smile and Bethany wants to laugh. She does- a small chuckle that hurts her ribs.
“Don’t welcome me back just yet, I’m still debating the pros and cons here” she croaks out. Her chest feels tender, and she knows it’ll take a while for it to heal. Weeks. Bethany doesn’t look forward to it.
“If you die, I’ll kill you.” Marian warns, warmth flooding her voice. Her tears fall freely, and a grin is plastered to her face.
“That’s a funny thing to say.” Bethany retorts. She can’t help but to smile herself.
The sounds of battle make their way into her consciousness, and she tries to sit up, only getting halfway before Marian pushes her back down to lay in their mother’s lap.
“Not yet, don’t strain yourself.” Bethany rolls her eyes with a little effort and looks up at their mother, who is staring back at her, face in tears.
“Oh, Bethany,” she says and strokes her hair, “My brave little girl.” Leandra smiles at her, and Bethany returns a sheepish grin. She hears her brother yell from beyond the wall of ice that guards them and turns limply to look at it. Bethany isn’t sure which one yelled, but she finds she cares less about the who and more about the why.
Her curiosities are answered with the resounding screech from the ogre that felled her, and the miniature earthquake its dead body causes when it falls. She gives a weak croak of encouragement, the dog barking with her, and smiles before turning back to their mother, who stares ahead with a horror-stricken face.
Bethany feels a sense of dread settle in the pit of her stomach. She looks over to get a glimpse of Marian’s face and gauge her reaction to their surroundings. She sees instead her sister standing tall, staff poised for a fight.
-
“There’s too many of them!” Garrett hears Marian call above the noise in his head and around them. More darkspawn. He opens his mouth to respond but before he can even get a breath out, a dragon roars overhead.
Despite the dire situation, he can’t help but feel an overwhelming amount of excitement.
”Well I’ve always wanted to meet a dragon,” he mumbles to himself, a little awestruck, and though he can neither see nor hear her, he knows his twin shares the sentiment.