She left her friends to walk Saemus up to the Viscount's room as the man welcomed his son with a relieved smile. "Hawke I take it? Thank you for getting my son back…" he glanced at her wounded shoulder, "I hope you didn't run into too much trouble."
"No…just a few thugs here and there," she lied only for Saemus to interrupt their conversation to start shouting about his lover. Admittedly Lisa was too tired to be involved and simply took her pay and left for the Hanged Man.
As the days passed, though, Lisa found that her shoulder wasn't mending as well as she had hoped it would. She couldn't figure out what it was but every time she pulled off her shirt to look at it, rather than seeing it healing up, it looked slightly off colored and was extremely tender. It was getting to a point that she couldn't really pull her bow back fully, which was starting to take a tow on her skills. The only thing that really seemed to help was a few cups of liquor to dull the pain. But surprisingly Isabela was the one to tell her to stop drinking.
"Look, Lisa…I can see that your shoulder hasn't healed. You need to stop being stubborn and ask your sister for help with it."
"I'm fine…"
"Stop," Isabela interrupted, taking the cup that was in Lisa's hand and pulling it away from her. "I'm serious," she reached over to touch her shoulder and Lisa immediately yelped in pain. "You and Bethany haven't talked to each other in days. This could easily become worse than you could expect. I've seen this at sea and it normally ends in you losing an arm or your life," she said in a more serious tone that Lisa had ever seen.
"Look, I'll go talk to Anders-"
"No, Lisa. Going behind your sister's back to get Anders to help isn't going to make this any easier. Go talk to Bethany." She said sternly before standing up and walking away. Lisa frowned, looking at the table surface as she pulled out her father's ring and turned it over in her fingers. She'd forgotten what he'd told her, what he'd asked her to do. He'd told her to give herself a chance to show her weakness, her sadness, to anyone. And all of Bethany's fussing was only making her more frazzled. So maybe…maybe Isabela was right.
Slowly she made her way back home. Gamlen was gone per usual and her mother was in bed, but Bethany was simply sitting in front of the fire, reading. She didn't react to Lisa's entrance, as she hadn't for most nights, only until Lisa leaned against the fire mantle. Bethany glanced up, her face flat as Lisa rolled her lips and looked towards the ceiling. "When mum and dad found out about your magic, they had sat Carver and I down-"
"What are you-" Lisa held up her hand to stop her sister.
"They sat us down and told us that having two mages in the family would mean that we would be in charge of keeping the family safe. And…they also told us that while it may seem like they didn't spend as much time with us, it didn't mean they loved us any less. Yet, when things started to get tough and we started to move homes we sort of forgot about it all. We were jealous and so we did whatever we could to get mum and dad's attention."
"Lisa I-"
"Please don't talk," she begged and quickly Bethany closed her mouth as Lisa continued. "And I guess with all of this in terms of the Blight I started to forget about what father had even asked for me. I've been selfish and angry and really…really sad. Mum was right about everything that happened during our escape from Lothering, it was my fault," she wiped at tears that had started to drip down her face. "I wanted to forget about it, to just pretend that it didn't bother me so that you and mother weren't bother by it. But I can't ignore it anymore. I can't do this alone, Bunny," she looked up at her sister's surprised face. "And I'm sorry for all of the things I've said." There was a pause before Bethany closed her book and stood from the seat.
"No…I'm sorry. I never realized everything that was happening. I sort of had always looked up to you for your strength. No matter what happened you were always able to smile or power through it and so I guess I never figured that it would ever come to a head." Lisa smirked, wiping at the last of her tears before clearing her throat.
"Okay, and finally…I really need you to look at my shoulder." Bethany laughed before nodding. And things were much smoother between the pair, not that it had ever been very rocky, but there was no longer tension that seemed to hover above the two of them.