Unlike the base metals of the enlisted men's buttons, an officer's uniform did sport real silver. Sharpe's face was impassive as he sawed at each bundle of thread, freeing them from his jacket and lining them up on the counter. It had been a year since he'd had to pay such prices for anything, and yet he found himself falling comfortably back into the mindset of a man who had no need for pretty silver trappings.

But some buttons were more painful to hand over than others. Although a few were plain silver, those same plain'uns were buttons he'd had the camp wives sew on to replace the originals. And it was these originals that he would mourn the most. They had a raised design: a bugle horn and a crown, numbered with the familiar 95.

"That, Sokka, is a price I'm more than willing to pay."