"I'll let you know, how about?"

"Okay."

"I love you."

"Love you too, Lion."

Happy noise! The first one Bellona's made in months, actually.

She'll have to keep that in mind for positive reinforcement.

Bellona opens back up, gradually - a lot clingier than she had been before El rejected her for so long, though. More desperate for attention. More prone to sadness and anxiety when El scorns her.

(It gives her more opportunities to observe, too, though she's now trying not to think about something being wrong with El, because - because - )

(It's a horrible, horrible thought, and all the thoughts that could possibly follow it are worse.)

She varies how much attention she pays to Bellona, playing hot and cold to keep her invested.

When she's in a very good mood, she'll let her be in the same room when she sleeps.

She's slowly turning Bellona into a nervous wreck! But an eager to please one, at least, desperate for El's approval.

(The horrible, anxious part of Bellona's brain wonders, sometimes, when El's asleep - if she could just search through El's things, into the pocket of her jacket - )

She seems to sleep very soundly.

...She goes looking for - whatever it is El keeps in her pocket.

(She'd be shaking, if she had a body, at the thought of how mad El might get...)

Her jacket is slung over the back of the chair. There's a small lump in the inside front pocket.

She carefully - quietly - pulls out whatever's in the pocket.

It's a ring. Plain. Unremarkable. Definitely not something worth worrying about.

(Except... As far as it can tell, it's being picked up by an empty suit of armor. A mindless suit of armor.)

Bellona hears no whispers.

Merely observes:

It's made of gold.

It's heavier than gold should be.

It's warmer than it should be.

It's an impossibly perfect circle.

 - Okay that's freaky. That's -

It's the beginning of the night. El went to sleep very, very recently.

Does she stir, if Bellona sneaks out?

She does not.

She goes to her own tent.

Tries to deconstruct the ring.

Fails.

Can't even analyze it.

Fuck fuck fuck -

She goes to find Estel.

He's asleep! But amenable to being woken up and dragged back to Bellona's tent, away from the people he'd been bunking with.

"What's wrong?"

" - El's been acting weird and like - like she never acted before - she's been mean and - "

She's telling this all out of order.

(She's scared, like - like she hasn't been, since coming home to find sensei's house destroyed - that same looming sense of dread - what if El never forgives her?)

- It's better for El to be mad at Bellona but be herself about it than for El to be even maybe controlled. And Bellona can just - stop existing, if El'd rather. That's a scary thought, but it's less scary than El being mad at her forever, so it calms her down a bit.

"...I found a ring in her jacket. She's - been touching it a lot. It's unnatural. And - and - I couldn't destroy it. Not with my alchemy. It's - there's something weird about it."

She's confided in Estel a lot, especially when El's in a cruel mood. He knows - more than anyone else in this world, by now. Many of the secrets of alchemy. The truth of Bellona's form. What happened to her body. Why she's - so confused about El turning her back on her little sister.

She takes out the ring.

He recoils, staring at it.

(He could rule over a united mankind - )

"Throw it in a fire," he says, voice choked.

...She makes a small fire.

She throws the ring in.

It's unharmed.

But a line of words in a strange script glows along the band.

"That's the One Ring," Estel whispers, horrified. "It's - "

"How do I destroy it."

"No ordinary means - "

He takes a deep breath.

"It's - "

"You have to throw it in Mount Doom. Where it was made. That's - the other side of Mordor - "

"I'll go."

"It's destroying my sister."

"I'll destroy it."