We have a 5-way tie.
You have until 23:59 (GMT) on August the 30th to make your choice.
The five stories still in contention:
You have until 23:59 (GMT) on August the 30th to make your choice.
The five stories still in contention:
Give It Some Welly by paranoid marvin
Napoleon wore a hat they said
Could leave his foes confounded
'Worth forty thousand men and more'
A claim that was well grounded
It won the day at Austerlitz
The toast of all of France
And when he placed it on his bonce
Opponents stood no chance
But at a mud-soaked Waterloo
The shoe was on the other foot
For Arthur had his wellies on
And 'twas Boney got the boot
To Be Reunited in Repurposed Gingham by Cat's Cradle
She'd driven the extra miles to the Sharpesville General Store.
Flour was cheaper locally – 100-pound burlap sacks of Stonemill's All-Purpose – but Sharpesville had the new floral-print gingham bags, and dress fabric wasn't available nowadays.
She'd gotten odd looks at the store – who buys so much flour?
But handmade dresses needed the fabric from three sacks, and Charlie would be home soon for the first time since deployment.
She'd make herself lovely in flowering gingham.
Clothes Maketh The Man? by mosaix
A doorstep. A thread bare shawl. Cold.
An orphanage. Hand-me-downs. Lonely and abandoned.
The workhouse. Thin, union clothing. Hungry and tired.
The streets. Infested beggar’s rags. Desperate.
A prison cell. Rough, uncomfortable garments. Confused and abused.
The barracks. A clean, warm, pressed uniform. Proud, human.
A trench. A muddy, torn uniform. Puttees, boots, a steel helmet, a gas mask. Scared.
A hospital. Regulation pyjamas, bloodied bandages. In pain.
A coffin. A shroud. Cold.
Elizabethan Bequest, Edwardian Beneficiary by The Judge
Her last family heirloom. Gloves, once worn by John Dee, alchemist, occultist.
She wasn’t the only impoverished aristocrat, but men could sell themselves to American heiresses. She could only sell the gloves.
She traced their gold embroidery, mystic symbols invariably interpreted as “Wear not at your peril!” Her translation differed: “Wear in extremis!”
In extremis...
She slipped the gloves on.
They seized pen and paper, started writing.
Transmutation. How to turn base metal into gold...
The Good Olde Days by Ursa major
Once, she loved to embroider; she never would again.
It did not help that he deserved to be punished -- treason is treason, and he’d failed to kill the tyrant -- but no one deserved such an end.
“Is it ready?” a guard asked.
“Yes.”
As the guard took the gold-embroidered coat made from her father’s bruised and bloodied skin, she prayed that she would never see it worn.
Her prayer was soon answered.
