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Shell Bell tries not to think too hard about Tony's sketchy Capitol friends or why they'd send him a train. She stows away for the short trip. She wears her godawful stupid dress. She paints triangles over her eyes and her cheeks, and squares around them, and she irons ringlets into her carefully divided hair, pins it up, and attaches the hat to the heap of white and blue.
She tucks her amulet under her neckline - the chain is fine enough to look like some more conventional piece of jewelry.
She holds her stick in her hand and stuffs her hand in her pocket.
It's early when they get there, barely dawn. The poll workers are setting up, but voters haven't accumulated yet.
She scopes out a starting place.
Leaning on a wall of a building across the street, pretending to be bored, forgetting not to chew her lip and tasting makeup - she finds one.
There are decorative torches, here and there, and that one has a bit of the Panem flag dangling quite near it in the calm. The flag has a cord. The cord touches the arch of the dome. From there she can get everything.
She waits for Sherlock to find where they'll duck when the panic starts. And when she gets the nod...
She assumes control of the torch. Yes, it's real fire, that's useful.
It flickers, it sways, it leaps.
It touches the flag, and maybe it wouldn't have caught, normally, but she makes it catch. The flag goes up in smoke; the cord catches and burns.
She sends the fire a quarter of the way around the circle at the base of the domed roof, first, before letting it climb any higher. She can still see all of the borders of the fire, but it's going to be implausible for her to keep it that way much longer.
People have started to notice - a poll worker, someone walking her dog. They don't seem to know what to do about it.
"Time to duck out of sight?" she murmurs to Sherlock in her best imitation of a Capitol accent.
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she_sells_seashells
she_sells_seashells
Well, okay then. The time for pauses between remarks in conversations is past and Sherlock is still smiling so that must be okay. Bell smiles back and closes her eyes.
sicaria
"I believe the remark about epiphanies was related," she adds, consideringly.
she_sells_seashells
"I do sometimes flatter myself into thinking I'm clever," snickers Bell.
she_sells_seashells
Bell grins at her. "We are both clever and pretty, and so we match," she declares.
sicaria
"Whenever Tony's friend decides to send us. It won't be too long, I don't think."
she_sells_seashells
"Okay. I wonder if there's anything else we should incinerate as long as we're here anyway."
she_sells_seashells
"I'm not so much wondering if there are targets as if it would be weird for two buildings to catch fire and burn farther than they usually do in a span of days."
she_sells_seashells
"If I have another opportunity like the train station I'll take that. Otherwise I guess there's nothing for it but to amuse ourselves. Clever ideas?" she asks, peering up. "You know more about where we are and what our safety parameters are for operating here."
sicaria
"A frequent pastime of mine in the Capitol is to put on a pretty dress and find someone to intimidate. I don't imagine it's much of a spectator sport."
she_sells_seashells
"I think I'd find that very briefly amusing. But not for long enough to be worth putting on my idiot-costume again. Should've gotten it in this morning," Bell sighs.
she_sells_seashells
"Alas," Bell agrees. "I suppose to join the studio audience for Flicker Talk or go on the Brilliant Promenade or something I'd also have to wear the stupid costume. Maybe this is another job for Milliways? Get Tony to stash us on this end and fetch us on the other? I suppose if you came with me, someone might wonder why you made the trip one way and not the other." Pause. "I suppose visiting the museumified arena where Lynnis died and leaving her a flower would be suspicious in any outfit."
sicaria
"It would. Unfortunately. You could go to Milliways by yourself, if you wished," says Sherlock.