"Maybe I should! Just leave me alone!"

Bellona makes a hurt noise -

Then turns and stomps out of the room.

"FINE!"

She snaps up a solid wall to close off the doorway after her.

And Bellona goes to sulk, avoiding El.

El returns the favor, putting on the ring whenever she has to move through common areas of the house.

Bellona starts trying to talk to her again two days later - looking for El, hanging out in common rooms...

El has been getting on just fine without Bellona (in her opinion). She declines to respond to these overtures.

Bellona spends a while kind of walking around in a cloud of depression (mixed with anger, sometimes), then avoiding the apartments entirely...

Then a rare book El'd been trying (and failing) to get her hands on appears in front of her door, with a stack of helpful notes, and drawings of them back in Amestris, and a note on top -

I love you.

I don't like fighting.

Please, El?

Is she mocking her now?

El turns the notes and the drawings to dust and almost does the same to the book, but can't quite bring herself to. So instead she kicks it viciously across the hall.

Why is she wasting her time here? She should leave the idiot dwarfs and the idiot mountain and her idiot sister and go out and do things.

The dwarves will be going to war soon, fortunately enough, though they've expressed some preference for the Elric sisters to stay in Khazad-dum, inventing. Still... Some voices want them closer to the front lines - or at least one of them.

She's not a fucking dwarf, so she'll go wherever she damn well pleases.

Still, easier to hitch a ride with a caravan than walk herself.

Bellona tries harder to intercept her as the caravan's departure date looms. Though she still seems - wounded, almost.

(The book vanishes from where El kicked it across the hall.)

El has taken to keeping the ring in a pocket on her jacket when she's not wearing it, and pets it compulsively every few seconds as she gathers up her things in the front hall.

Bellona interrupts her. Though the armor isn't exactly capable of stealth; El will hear her coming.

She does her best to pretend Bellona's not there.

"El!" Bellona says. "El can you please talk to me?"

"What do you want," she says.

"I don't want to be fighting. I - don't know why you're mad at me, but... I'm sorry for making you mad."

"I really don't want to - split up. Especially while we're still fighting. I want to be there for you. Especially - especially if you get hurt or - or - worse."

She caresses her pocket.

"Go where you want."

"I want to be by your side. Always."

She sniffs derisively.

That's definitely a hurt posture. "El. I'm - your sister - I want to follow you."

El continues packing.

"...I'm going to follow you. Unless you send me away." And then she'll keep following at a distance. She's - scared, about this war turning into another Ishval, but more about her sister being the one potentially in stabbing range of enemies. She's scared about how her sister is changing. "You don't - have to talk to me. You don't have to acknowledge me. But I want to be where you are."

El hefts her pack and walks out the door, patting the ring again.