I'm Bethany Hawke, Garrett Hawke is my brother. We come from Thedas, and our magic is fairly unique - like most people here, I suppose.
Back home, before I was made a Grey Warden, I was considered an Apostate. In our world, when it's discovered that you have magical abilities as a child, you're sent to what's called A Circle. They're-- well, essentially magical prisons that mask themselves as schools. My mother wasn't a mage, but my father was, and when they discovered they were with child with my brother, my father escaped the Circle. They married and lived in secret, and my twin brother and I came along a few years later.
My father loathed the Circles, and so when it was discovered I was a mage, they kept me protected and my father taught me control and how to stay inconspicuous, otherwise we either would have been dragged to a Circle or killed.
Then my father died, and the Blight came, and we lost our home and moved to Kirkwall, which was... well. Not the most fun city. Later, I was conscripted into the Grey Wardens - or die - and I left to join them. Thankfully, you can be a mage without being hunted as a Warden, so at least I was safe from Templars there.
My areas of magic are primarily "force" magic - I move things and cause disruptions in the world around me, but my first area of magic was Healing. So I tend to stick to the latter while here, as I've had my fill of fighting over the last decade.