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.

Bellona doesn't really need luggage, and - she knew El was leaving. She's already arranged for someone to watch the house and the strays and the plants, and she's wrapped up the ongoing experiments.

She follows El, locking up behind her.

(Why does El keep touching her pocket...)

She ignores her armored shadow the whole way to the departure point.

Bellona is mostly failing to not project an aura of depression alongside her determination. She's clearly anxious, too. Hasn't shown any of her usual signs of happiness, even when people she knows call out to her.

The caravan members - a faster moving party than the main army, scouting ahead to join Gondor in coordination against Mordor - are kind of leery of the obvious tension between the two genius sisters, but no one brings it up.

Bellona can at least be reassured that El is just as snappish with everyone else as with her.

She also takes to using the ring at night, vanishing out of her tent for some time in her private world.

Bellona is SO WORRIED. About El's behavior, about El's health, about the destructive nature of the weapons El's been designing...

(Bellona has a portion of rations set aside for her. She leaves them all just inside of El's tent after every meal. It's not like she needs to eat, and she knows El gets hungrier than these rations will support.)

But, mostly, she's -

Silent. Like a statue, sometimes. She's largely stopped emoting as expressively. She doesn't talk to El. Doesn't give her reasons to snap.

(She reads. A lot. She befriends Estel, who somehow finagles his way into accompanying the dwarves heading to Gondor despite being really a kid in their eyes. El and Bellona are kids too, after all.)

(It feels like she's going insane, trapped inside her shell of a body - she's more aware, lately, without El around, how she can't feel anything. How utterly horrid that is.)

El doesn't like Bellona staying too still. She expresses this by shoving at her, finding excuses that she's in the way.

She withdraws into herself even more, sits more out of the way, interacts with people less.

She starts trying to pick fights on purpose.