![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
☀ application: mostly harmless.
Character name: Bethany Hawke
Fandom: Dragon Age II
Timeline: The Last Straw, right after she rejoins the party, but before the final battles.
Age: It's implied that she was 18 at the time of The Destruction of Lothering, which would make her 25 now.
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths:
Bethany is a mage, so she has a wide variety of spells at her disposal, from healing to fireballs to telekinesis. However, she can only cast so many before needing to rest or chug a lyrium potion to restore her mana.
She also happens to be a Grey Warden - she drank some monster blood as part of the Joining ritual so now her own blood is tainted. Fun stuff!! So, she can sense nearby darkspawn (which are basically horrible corrupted monsters that pop up from time to time to destroy shit) as well as other Wardens, since they all share that taint with her. And she can, on occasion, hear the darkspawn's thoughts in her dreams, which is pretty horrifying. That taint also boosts her metabolism a bit, which results in an increased appetite and stamina, as well as a reduced lifespan. Being a Warden is hard. :(
How would they use their abilities?:
"Magic will serve that which is best in me, not that which is most base." Bethany learned from her father at a young age to use her abilities for good. She likes helping people in need, and she certainly isn't about to go around setting people's hair on fire for funsies. And I doubt the Warden stuff will ever be really relevant in-game, so. All she'll do is try to make a living, really.
Appearance:
It's hard to say how tall Bethany is because lol game models, but I like to imagine that she's fairly short, with a lean, somewhat athletic build. Being a mage doesn't really lend itself well to building up a lot of muscle, but all of her recent Grey Warden escapades have kept her in good shape. She sports wavy black hair that falls to her shoulders, and the traditional blue and silver robes of the Grey Wardens. Also her chest is not as... ample as Varric might tell you. Basically she's adorable.
Background/Personality:
In Thedas, magic is just as natural as gravity or magnetism. And there are some people, mages, who are born with the ability to interact with, control, and shape it. Magic comes from the Fade, the realm where spirits and demons dwell, and humans and elves go to dream; and so because of this connection, mages are especially prone to demonic corruption and possession. Any mage that becomes corrupted by a demon becomes a distortion of their former self, a twisted creature known as an abomination that can and will slaughter as many people as it wants to. Which is to say all of them.
So, naturally, mages aren't exactly popular. The Chantry (dominant religion in Thedas) established the Circle of Magic to regulate magic use throughout Thedas, and the Templar Order was created to catch mages who escaped or refused to join the Circle. Mages who are not part of the Circle are known as apostates, and templars are charged with hunting them down and either capturing or killing them.
Bethany Hawke's life is largely defined by these terms. She is an apostate, a mage like her father, though her siblings (older sister Marian and twin brother Carver) are both perfectly normal and magic-free. As a result, Bethany spent a lot more time with papa Malcolm, who was once a Circle mage and ran away to Ferelden with her mother Leandra. He taught her everything he knew about controlling her magic and, most importantly, hiding it so she would never have to worry about being caught by templars. He also taught her that her magic can be a positive force, no matter how much the Chantry and its followers might look down on it. Magic can be a tool used for good, a way of helping other people, not something to control her or to be wielded as a weapon. Thanks to his influence, she has been able to grow up into a talented mage, but also a tired and fearful one.
Her life - and that of her family - has essentially revolved around keeping her and Malcolm out of the Circle. And she is ashamed of that, because she knows her parents didn't want any of their children to be born with magic, and everyone's lives would be so much easier if this had actually happened. Add in the fact that she is a fairly devout Andrastian (and that the Chantry looks down on all mages ever and wants to lock them all up), she has something of a complex, and she's grown to resent what she is as a result. All she's ever really wanted out of life is to be normal, because as useful as magic can be, being a mage is more trouble than it's worth. And if she didn't have to run and hide from templars all the time, she wouldn't be such a burden on the rest of her family, particularly the non-magical ones. This complex only gets worse after the death of her father - with Malcolm gone, she is now the only mage out of herself, Leandra, Marian, and Carver, who continue to go to great lengths to keep her out of the Circle. Like she explains to Anders later on, "It was never anything I had to work for. Other people always took the risks to keep me free."
And she feels really guilty about that.
So, then there's this Blight thing, which is when the darkspawn find and corrupt an Old God, which turns into an Archdemon and leads the horde to attack the surface world. It's pretty terrible. If you've played Dragon Age: Origins, you might remember Lothering, a piddly little village you and your party passed through after the failed battle at Ostagar, and got completely wrecked almost as soon as you left. Yep, the Hawke family is from there.
In fact, Marian and Carver were even at Ostagar, fighting with King Cailan's army when the darkspawn attacked, but they were fortunate enough to be able to escape, swing by Lothering to pick up Mommy and Bethany, and decide to flee to Kirkwall, where their mother's family apparently has an estate. Along the way, they run into another knight in King Cailan's service, Aveline, and her husband Wesley - a templar. After some convincing from her sister, Wesley kindly agrees to not tie up the apostate and take her away, and the two parties join forces to better their chances of surviving. He dies later and it is very sad.
Soon after, the group encounters more darkspawn - including an ogre, which Carver charges at and is promptly squished to death. Now, Carver was a bit of an ass at times, and Bethany was far closer to Marian than she was to him. But he was still her twin, and that is a loss that stays with you for the rest of your life. Her entire family is pretty much the most important thing in the world to her, though, and it's their influence that really shapes her character. She misses Carver every day of her life after he dies; she loves and practically idolizes Marian and the way she can smooth things over with a smile and a witty remark; she strives to be the good person her father taught her to be; she cares and worries for her mother after the loss of her only son.
So one might think, with all of her issues with her magic and the horrible loss of her home and her twin, that Bethany would be an angry, bitter girl who hates the world. No, that comes later! Varric actually gives her the nickname "Sunshine," which is as astute an analysis of her as any. For all the hardships she's suffered, she continues to be a kind and optimistic person, encouraging and supporting Marian to help whenever they encounter someone in need, or earning rivalry points whenever she might choose to be aggressive or selfish. She's also kind of nosy and innocent, in that she likes to ask people lots of questions. This is presumably because she's very curious about other people's lives; she likes to hear about how others, people who aren't like her, live, because her life is kind of unpleasant. But she tries to make the most of it, regardless.
And for all her kindness, Bethany is still very much a Hawke. She can snark and kick ass right alongside her siblings without missing a beat, and she'll enjoy every moment of it. It's said that Malcolm Hawke was a charming man, who never gave anyone a straight answer and took everything as a joke. Though Marian takes after him most, Bethany seems to have inherited some of his humor as well, though hers is a bit more subtle - but just as sarcastic.
Being in Kirkwall is an... interesting experience for Bethany. For a number of reasons. Templars have an especially strong presence in the City of Chains, and as an apostate mage, it's enough to make her a little twitchy. Of course, her mother and sister's determination to keep her away from the Circle never wavers, and they continue to protect her and keep her hidden.
When she meets Anders, who is something of a freedom fighter for mages everywhere (ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH and all that), she sees something of a kindred spirit in him. He, too, has spent his life evading the templars, though he is much more vocal about his belief in mages' rights than she is. At one point, she says he reminds her of her father, which is a pretty big compliment, coming from her - so it's safe to assume that she respects him, on some level.
So, Mother dragged her kids to Kirkwall in the hopes that they would be able to make a home of her parents' old estate in Hightown, right? WRONG. Good old Uncle Gamlen sold it off years ago and lost all of the money gambling, so rather than living it up as a noble, he lives in a little shithole in Lowtown. Lowtown, if you couldn't guess, is a significant step down from Hightown. So, after getting settled in Kirkwall, Bethany and Marian essentially make it their goal in life to acquire more money and move up in life. To be honest, all either of them really wanted was to find a way out of Gamlen's place and live comfortably - but because it would make their mother happy, after having lost a home, a husband, and a son, they look into finding a way to restore the Amell family's status and move back into the old estate. And, well, Bethany can't deny that the life of a noblewoman sounds extremely appealing.
So they put all of their hope for that into an expedition into the Deep Roads. If they can acquire the masses of riches everyone's expecting to find down there, they will be set for life, and things will be awesome forever. Except things never turn out the way you plan them, especially when your last name is Hawke.
Being that the Deep Roads are essentially the darkspawn's home, it's not surprising that someone would fall ill with their taint. Of course, it had to be Bethany. And the only way for her to survive was to join the Grey Wardens, who are basically the world's first and last defense against the Blight. They take that darkspawn taint into their body and use it against them, which has some pretty awful side effects. By becoming a Warden, Bethany is condemned to a miserable existence, one that is even further away from her dream of having a normal, peaceful life. Instead, she's destined to fight monsters and suffer through hideous nightmares for the rest of her life. Which is only about thirty more years or so - so she is essentially living on borrowed time.
However, Marian got out of the Deep Roads unscathed. She got the piles of money that they had been hoping for, bought back the Amell estate, and became a well-known name all over Kirkwall for her efforts. Marian got everything, and Bethany lost everything. Remember how I said she wasn't bitter or angry about her life? Yeah, well, now she is. She spends the next six years or so resenting her sister for the way things turned out for both of them. Sends her super passive-aggressive letters and everything! "That's what my life is now: survival, getting through each day. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
Bethany doesn't see her sister again for three years, not until the Wardens happen to be passing through the area in the midst of the qunari attack. She is cold and angry, a far cry from the girl who went away with the Wardens; she only softens at the mention of their recently deceased mother. Even then, it doesn't take her very long to put walls back up around her, and she's more than happy to turn her back on Marian and walk away from her again. They meet again another three years or so later in the Deep Roads, after her and Nathaniel's sort of failed expedition. There, she states that if she lets herself miss her old life and her family, she "couldn't go on. It's better not to feel." So she bottles up her emotions, hides away, tries to forget about her old life. The darkspawn, at this point, have pretty much ruined her entire life. They took her home away, they took her brother's life, and now they've taken her life, too. And she finds it easier to be angry and distant, rather than sad and depressed and missing her family.
She does eventually get over it, though, and forgives Marian in the end. It helps that her big sis took the mages' side when the conflict with the templars finally came to a head. After the Chantry goes boom and things turn to hell, Bethany appears and rejoins the party, stating that right now, she isn't a Grey Warden: first and foremost, she is Marian's sister, and she'll fight by her side to the end. And she comes to realize that while being a Grey Warden isn't the most pleasant life, it can be rewarding if she allows it to be. She's alive, and there is honor to be found in what she does. Besides, this is the path the Maker has set out for her, and He knows what He's doing a hell of a lot better than she does.
1st person sample: Here is a test drive thread!!
3rd person sample:
"It's better not to feel," she'd told Marian, back in the Deep Roads, and Bethany had almost convinced herself of that statement's truth. These past six years have been bad enough, with all the darkspawn and nightmares and everything else. She doesn't need to mourn for all that she's lost, on top of that.
Once their business is done and over with, the Hawke sisters part ways once more, and it's not unlike that first time they'd been to the Deep Roads, all those years ago. Marian goes her way, back to her city, and Bethany goes hers, to rejoin the Wardens. But it doesn't feel right, she thinks, to be walking away from each other like this. With Mother and Father and Carver all gone, they both are all the other has left. Marian is all she has left in the world--
No. Thinking like that won't get her anywhere; it will only hurt her. So she buries the thought, and she moves on. Tries to, anyway.
Before long, Kirkwall falls apart. The Chantry destroyed, the Grand Cleric dead, mages and templars on the brink of war, and, of course, the Champion of Kirkwall in the middle of it all. It would only be surprising if Marian hadn't had anything to do with it at all.
Bethany knows the rules. Grey Wardens aren't meant to get involved in political affairs - their only purpose is to protect Thedas from the darkspawn and end the Blight. Bethany knows this. She should ignore everything she's heard, bury her feelings as she's learned to do over the years, and move on. The time for following her sister into the unknown has long passed; she has her brothers and sisters of the Grey to do that with, now.
But she is so much more than a Grey Warden, no matter what Stroud or the others might try to tell her. She is a Hawke, first and foremost, and most importantly, a sister. Not a very good one, if her piss poor attitude the past few years is any indication, but what better time to make up for it than now? She'll be chewed out for it later, but she finds she doesn't care. She leaves a note by her bedroll, explaining that she's gone to take care of a few things and that she'll be back soon. Nathaniel won't buy it, but he has a sister - he'll understand.
She arrives just in time to see Kirkwall burning, amidst templars and mages fighting for their lives. And, of course, Marian is there at the center of things, as she always is.
"The Hawke sisters, together again. Just like old times."
Fandom: Dragon Age II
Timeline: The Last Straw, right after she rejoins the party, but before the final battles.
Age: It's implied that she was 18 at the time of The Destruction of Lothering, which would make her 25 now.
~*Magical*~ abilities and strengths:
Bethany is a mage, so she has a wide variety of spells at her disposal, from healing to fireballs to telekinesis. However, she can only cast so many before needing to rest or chug a lyrium potion to restore her mana.
She also happens to be a Grey Warden - she drank some monster blood as part of the Joining ritual so now her own blood is tainted. Fun stuff!! So, she can sense nearby darkspawn (which are basically horrible corrupted monsters that pop up from time to time to destroy shit) as well as other Wardens, since they all share that taint with her. And she can, on occasion, hear the darkspawn's thoughts in her dreams, which is pretty horrifying. That taint also boosts her metabolism a bit, which results in an increased appetite and stamina, as well as a reduced lifespan. Being a Warden is hard. :(
How would they use their abilities?:
"Magic will serve that which is best in me, not that which is most base." Bethany learned from her father at a young age to use her abilities for good. She likes helping people in need, and she certainly isn't about to go around setting people's hair on fire for funsies. And I doubt the Warden stuff will ever be really relevant in-game, so. All she'll do is try to make a living, really.
Appearance:
It's hard to say how tall Bethany is because lol game models, but I like to imagine that she's fairly short, with a lean, somewhat athletic build. Being a mage doesn't really lend itself well to building up a lot of muscle, but all of her recent Grey Warden escapades have kept her in good shape. She sports wavy black hair that falls to her shoulders, and the traditional blue and silver robes of the Grey Wardens. Also her chest is not as... ample as Varric might tell you. Basically she's adorable.
Background/Personality:
In Thedas, magic is just as natural as gravity or magnetism. And there are some people, mages, who are born with the ability to interact with, control, and shape it. Magic comes from the Fade, the realm where spirits and demons dwell, and humans and elves go to dream; and so because of this connection, mages are especially prone to demonic corruption and possession. Any mage that becomes corrupted by a demon becomes a distortion of their former self, a twisted creature known as an abomination that can and will slaughter as many people as it wants to. Which is to say all of them.
So, naturally, mages aren't exactly popular. The Chantry (dominant religion in Thedas) established the Circle of Magic to regulate magic use throughout Thedas, and the Templar Order was created to catch mages who escaped or refused to join the Circle. Mages who are not part of the Circle are known as apostates, and templars are charged with hunting them down and either capturing or killing them.
Bethany Hawke's life is largely defined by these terms. She is an apostate, a mage like her father, though her siblings (older sister Marian and twin brother Carver) are both perfectly normal and magic-free. As a result, Bethany spent a lot more time with papa Malcolm, who was once a Circle mage and ran away to Ferelden with her mother Leandra. He taught her everything he knew about controlling her magic and, most importantly, hiding it so she would never have to worry about being caught by templars. He also taught her that her magic can be a positive force, no matter how much the Chantry and its followers might look down on it. Magic can be a tool used for good, a way of helping other people, not something to control her or to be wielded as a weapon. Thanks to his influence, she has been able to grow up into a talented mage, but also a tired and fearful one.
Her life - and that of her family - has essentially revolved around keeping her and Malcolm out of the Circle. And she is ashamed of that, because she knows her parents didn't want any of their children to be born with magic, and everyone's lives would be so much easier if this had actually happened. Add in the fact that she is a fairly devout Andrastian (and that the Chantry looks down on all mages ever and wants to lock them all up), she has something of a complex, and she's grown to resent what she is as a result. All she's ever really wanted out of life is to be normal, because as useful as magic can be, being a mage is more trouble than it's worth. And if she didn't have to run and hide from templars all the time, she wouldn't be such a burden on the rest of her family, particularly the non-magical ones. This complex only gets worse after the death of her father - with Malcolm gone, she is now the only mage out of herself, Leandra, Marian, and Carver, who continue to go to great lengths to keep her out of the Circle. Like she explains to Anders later on, "It was never anything I had to work for. Other people always took the risks to keep me free."
And she feels really guilty about that.
So, then there's this Blight thing, which is when the darkspawn find and corrupt an Old God, which turns into an Archdemon and leads the horde to attack the surface world. It's pretty terrible. If you've played Dragon Age: Origins, you might remember Lothering, a piddly little village you and your party passed through after the failed battle at Ostagar, and got completely wrecked almost as soon as you left. Yep, the Hawke family is from there.
In fact, Marian and Carver were even at Ostagar, fighting with King Cailan's army when the darkspawn attacked, but they were fortunate enough to be able to escape, swing by Lothering to pick up Mommy and Bethany, and decide to flee to Kirkwall, where their mother's family apparently has an estate. Along the way, they run into another knight in King Cailan's service, Aveline, and her husband Wesley - a templar. After some convincing from her sister, Wesley kindly agrees to not tie up the apostate and take her away, and the two parties join forces to better their chances of surviving. He dies later and it is very sad.
Soon after, the group encounters more darkspawn - including an ogre, which Carver charges at and is promptly squished to death. Now, Carver was a bit of an ass at times, and Bethany was far closer to Marian than she was to him. But he was still her twin, and that is a loss that stays with you for the rest of your life. Her entire family is pretty much the most important thing in the world to her, though, and it's their influence that really shapes her character. She misses Carver every day of her life after he dies; she loves and practically idolizes Marian and the way she can smooth things over with a smile and a witty remark; she strives to be the good person her father taught her to be; she cares and worries for her mother after the loss of her only son.
So one might think, with all of her issues with her magic and the horrible loss of her home and her twin, that Bethany would be an angry, bitter girl who hates the world. No, that comes later! Varric actually gives her the nickname "Sunshine," which is as astute an analysis of her as any. For all the hardships she's suffered, she continues to be a kind and optimistic person, encouraging and supporting Marian to help whenever they encounter someone in need, or earning rivalry points whenever she might choose to be aggressive or selfish. She's also kind of nosy and innocent, in that she likes to ask people lots of questions. This is presumably because she's very curious about other people's lives; she likes to hear about how others, people who aren't like her, live, because her life is kind of unpleasant. But she tries to make the most of it, regardless.
And for all her kindness, Bethany is still very much a Hawke. She can snark and kick ass right alongside her siblings without missing a beat, and she'll enjoy every moment of it. It's said that Malcolm Hawke was a charming man, who never gave anyone a straight answer and took everything as a joke. Though Marian takes after him most, Bethany seems to have inherited some of his humor as well, though hers is a bit more subtle - but just as sarcastic.
Being in Kirkwall is an... interesting experience for Bethany. For a number of reasons. Templars have an especially strong presence in the City of Chains, and as an apostate mage, it's enough to make her a little twitchy. Of course, her mother and sister's determination to keep her away from the Circle never wavers, and they continue to protect her and keep her hidden.
When she meets Anders, who is something of a freedom fighter for mages everywhere (ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH and all that), she sees something of a kindred spirit in him. He, too, has spent his life evading the templars, though he is much more vocal about his belief in mages' rights than she is. At one point, she says he reminds her of her father, which is a pretty big compliment, coming from her - so it's safe to assume that she respects him, on some level.
So, Mother dragged her kids to Kirkwall in the hopes that they would be able to make a home of her parents' old estate in Hightown, right? WRONG. Good old Uncle Gamlen sold it off years ago and lost all of the money gambling, so rather than living it up as a noble, he lives in a little shithole in Lowtown. Lowtown, if you couldn't guess, is a significant step down from Hightown. So, after getting settled in Kirkwall, Bethany and Marian essentially make it their goal in life to acquire more money and move up in life. To be honest, all either of them really wanted was to find a way out of Gamlen's place and live comfortably - but because it would make their mother happy, after having lost a home, a husband, and a son, they look into finding a way to restore the Amell family's status and move back into the old estate. And, well, Bethany can't deny that the life of a noblewoman sounds extremely appealing.
So they put all of their hope for that into an expedition into the Deep Roads. If they can acquire the masses of riches everyone's expecting to find down there, they will be set for life, and things will be awesome forever. Except things never turn out the way you plan them, especially when your last name is Hawke.
Being that the Deep Roads are essentially the darkspawn's home, it's not surprising that someone would fall ill with their taint. Of course, it had to be Bethany. And the only way for her to survive was to join the Grey Wardens, who are basically the world's first and last defense against the Blight. They take that darkspawn taint into their body and use it against them, which has some pretty awful side effects. By becoming a Warden, Bethany is condemned to a miserable existence, one that is even further away from her dream of having a normal, peaceful life. Instead, she's destined to fight monsters and suffer through hideous nightmares for the rest of her life. Which is only about thirty more years or so - so she is essentially living on borrowed time.
However, Marian got out of the Deep Roads unscathed. She got the piles of money that they had been hoping for, bought back the Amell estate, and became a well-known name all over Kirkwall for her efforts. Marian got everything, and Bethany lost everything. Remember how I said she wasn't bitter or angry about her life? Yeah, well, now she is. She spends the next six years or so resenting her sister for the way things turned out for both of them. Sends her super passive-aggressive letters and everything! "That's what my life is now: survival, getting through each day. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
Bethany doesn't see her sister again for three years, not until the Wardens happen to be passing through the area in the midst of the qunari attack. She is cold and angry, a far cry from the girl who went away with the Wardens; she only softens at the mention of their recently deceased mother. Even then, it doesn't take her very long to put walls back up around her, and she's more than happy to turn her back on Marian and walk away from her again. They meet again another three years or so later in the Deep Roads, after her and Nathaniel's sort of failed expedition. There, she states that if she lets herself miss her old life and her family, she "couldn't go on. It's better not to feel." So she bottles up her emotions, hides away, tries to forget about her old life. The darkspawn, at this point, have pretty much ruined her entire life. They took her home away, they took her brother's life, and now they've taken her life, too. And she finds it easier to be angry and distant, rather than sad and depressed and missing her family.
She does eventually get over it, though, and forgives Marian in the end. It helps that her big sis took the mages' side when the conflict with the templars finally came to a head. After the Chantry goes boom and things turn to hell, Bethany appears and rejoins the party, stating that right now, she isn't a Grey Warden: first and foremost, she is Marian's sister, and she'll fight by her side to the end. And she comes to realize that while being a Grey Warden isn't the most pleasant life, it can be rewarding if she allows it to be. She's alive, and there is honor to be found in what she does. Besides, this is the path the Maker has set out for her, and He knows what He's doing a hell of a lot better than she does.
1st person sample: Here is a test drive thread!!
3rd person sample:
"It's better not to feel," she'd told Marian, back in the Deep Roads, and Bethany had almost convinced herself of that statement's truth. These past six years have been bad enough, with all the darkspawn and nightmares and everything else. She doesn't need to mourn for all that she's lost, on top of that.
Once their business is done and over with, the Hawke sisters part ways once more, and it's not unlike that first time they'd been to the Deep Roads, all those years ago. Marian goes her way, back to her city, and Bethany goes hers, to rejoin the Wardens. But it doesn't feel right, she thinks, to be walking away from each other like this. With Mother and Father and Carver all gone, they both are all the other has left. Marian is all she has left in the world--
No. Thinking like that won't get her anywhere; it will only hurt her. So she buries the thought, and she moves on. Tries to, anyway.
Before long, Kirkwall falls apart. The Chantry destroyed, the Grand Cleric dead, mages and templars on the brink of war, and, of course, the Champion of Kirkwall in the middle of it all. It would only be surprising if Marian hadn't had anything to do with it at all.
Bethany knows the rules. Grey Wardens aren't meant to get involved in political affairs - their only purpose is to protect Thedas from the darkspawn and end the Blight. Bethany knows this. She should ignore everything she's heard, bury her feelings as she's learned to do over the years, and move on. The time for following her sister into the unknown has long passed; she has her brothers and sisters of the Grey to do that with, now.
But she is so much more than a Grey Warden, no matter what Stroud or the others might try to tell her. She is a Hawke, first and foremost, and most importantly, a sister. Not a very good one, if her piss poor attitude the past few years is any indication, but what better time to make up for it than now? She'll be chewed out for it later, but she finds she doesn't care. She leaves a note by her bedroll, explaining that she's gone to take care of a few things and that she'll be back soon. Nathaniel won't buy it, but he has a sister - he'll understand.
She arrives just in time to see Kirkwall burning, amidst templars and mages fighting for their lives. And, of course, Marian is there at the center of things, as she always is.
"The Hawke sisters, together again. Just like old times."