[Firefoot]

When Sondo awoke the next morning, he had little recollection of the previous night save for his swim after Sassy. The memory seemed to have been replaced by a splitting headache. He lay in his own bedroll; Sassy had been covered up in hers. He knew not whether he or another had put her there, but he was glad, for he did not desire to see her face. His grief had been replaced by a dull sense of duty. He was still the leader. He must get the others across the river safely. They would not end as Sassy had.

When he tried to get up, he found that his limbs were stiff and his muscles, sore. His clothes still retained some dampness from the previous night. No, he did not feel very well at all. He would not let it show, though, and moved about camp as easily as he could manage. He pulled some breakfast out of the packs, giving to the others as they awoke. He said little, and his motions were by rote. He had hit the same level of focus that he had felt the former night when trying to reach Sassy, only now his goal was Must get everyone home safely.

Once everyone was awake and had eaten and the sun risen above the trees, Sondo spoke up, "Well, let's get going. Maybe we can be home by noon." The only optimistic part about this sentence was the words, for his tone carried no enthusiasm for the task. Certainly, he wanted to be home, but suddenly he was loathe for this adventure to be over, for what would he do then? Could he so easily go back to the pranks and mischief that he had so much enjoyed before leaving? He did not know, and the not knowing troubled him more than anything else.

The lads hefted their packs for the short walk to the river. Sondo carried Sassy's body wrapped in a blanket. He wondered how to get across during this trek and, by the time they reached the Withywindle, had in mind a plan to get them all across.

First, after gently laying Sassy's form down on the ground, he dug out the rope Gandalf had left hem from his pack. It looked long enough to stretch across the river easily. Then he looked around for a fallen log or some other such thing that might work for a boat. Luckily, he spotted one about twenty feet from the river, and it didn't look to be rotten.

"Okay, here's my plan," he said. "I don't want to have to swim across, and I don't trust the branches of these trees enough to swing across on a rope." He felt silly saying this, but he knew they would understand what he meant. "So, as nearly as I can tell, the only other way is to row across. We can use that log over there-" Sondo pointed. "-for a boat. To ensure that no one slips-" (What he meant was drowns) "-we can tie the rope around each hobbit as they go, so if they fall off the log they can be pulled back to shore. All right?"