The two of the rose early in the morning before the dawn. Escutcheon poured out all but two of the potions that he had taken with him. Leaving only the red potion and a strange slimy purple potion still in their bottles. All the others lay empty at his hooves their contents poured out on to the grass.
"That's ten bottles it's not much but if we both drink one bottle a day plus four days worth of water in our canteens that will give us one week and two days worth of water." Escutcheon frowned. "I don't think that it will be enough what about you?"
"I don't know?" Dusk sighed as she filled the empty glass bottles full of water. "All the scouts said was that it was a large desert. How large of a desert it is, well I have absolutely no idea. It might only take us eight days to get across assuming we walk from sunrise to noon and from sunset to the seventh or eighth hour of the night."
"Yeah but that won't give us a lot of time to sleep. And you said that you couldn't handle the heat or the bight sunlight in the dessert." Dusk sighed and nodded.
"True, if I had some scouting goggles it would be a different story but I don't. Still I think that I'll be able to handle the sunlight for a little bit. Besides it won't matter if I can deal with it or not if we run out of water in the middle of a desert. We have to get across the desert quick, and if that means I have to deal with some sunlight then I'll deal with some sunlight." She picked up all the bottles and put five in her bag and passed him five to put in his bag. "Now let's hurry up and go if we leave now we might get a good ways into the desert before the sun gets to high." Escutcheon nodded closing his saddle bags the two of them headed out of the glade and moved on to the west.
Not long after they left their camp the glades vanished, and only grass remained. The two of them walked across the dry grass land. The grass wasn't even covered in dew. The air was quickly getting drier. With each kilometer there was less and less grass. By the time the moon was setting in the sky in front of them and the sky above them was beginning to show the first traces of day, they were already in the desert. Small thorny shrubs and thin patches of grass were the only forms of vegetation.
"The desert is going to start getting sandy the further we push into it." Dusk trotted up to Escutcheon's side. "What wrong?"
"Nothings wrong."
"Right then why is it that the sapphire that glows when you're happy faded to just about nothing?"
"It's just I'm, I'm kind of scared." Escutcheon looked away from her toward the setting moon. "I've never been in a place where I couldn't get water. When I started I could drink the dew. After that I was with Tilda in her house. And after that I was with you. I always had water. Out here though. We could die."
"Boo!"
"Huh?" Escutcheon looked back at Dusk.
"Boo! That's really depressing. I don't want to hear it and you're not being you." She jumped up on his shoulders and gently bit his ear.
"Hey!" He stepped back unable to get away. She continued to gently chew on his ear. "Come on Dusk stop it that tickles!"
"There." She got off of him. The two of them smiling. "That's the Escutcheon I know. Now we're going to get through this desert in a week. Then me and my dad will help you. Now chin up." He nodded. "Good, let's go?"
"Thank you Dusk. I'm glad that we met." Dusk's cheeks started to glow.
"Yeah me too." The two of them kept walking the sun at their back elongating their shadows to twenty times their size. The cold air of the desert night didn't last long after the sun breached the eastern horizon. Soon the temperature was just as hot as the air was dry. The two of them were drenched in sweat and panting as they continued to push further and further west trying to get as far as the could before the sun became to unbearable. Escutcheon couldn't imagine that the sun could be this cruel.
"Dusk. are you okay." He asked, the sun was starting to get high in the sky. It was ten maybe eleven o'clock, and she was about to pass out her eyes were tightly shut. She panted and kept walking, not even acknowledging him. "Dusk!"
"Huh." She tuned around. "I'm sorry I, don't think I can keep going today." She got on her knees panting. He helped her get another sip from her canteen.
"It's okay Dusk we got pretty far. Just lay down." He took her saddle bags off. He pulled four folded bars, and set them in the ground. Soon he had the tarp set up. It blocked the sun above them. He threw his blanket and her blanket on the to covering the western end of their camp. "Just stay still Dusk it'll get better soon." He really hoped it got better.