The desert sun was slow in setting on the western horizon. The heat wasn't fading. Escutcheon tied the corners of the blankets together and moved Dusk to the corner of the blanket. Hoping that getting her in the shade would help her. The sunlight was blinding, and the air was unbearably hot.
"Escutcheon. Is the sun almost down yet?" She panted, Her body drenched in sweat.
"Almost." He helped her get another swig from her canteen. The four days worth of water was a woefully incorrect estimate on how long their canteens would last. At this rate their canteens would be out of water by tomorrow. He took a small sip from his canteen, and grimaced, and pulled out bottle with the red liquid, and waited for the sun to vanish under the horizon.
After half an hour the sun finally finished sinking beneath the horizon. The temperature began to drop. He pulled the cork and helped Dusk take a sip from it. Instantly the potion went to work. She opened her eyes, they were completely normal again. Not a trace of her having dealt with the desert sun. "Wow what was that?"
"Zecora's one fix potion. It's a highly concentrated revitalization potion." He helped her back up to her hooves. "It helps to fix a lot of physical problems, but it only works for a little bit."
"You mean my eyes are going to hurt again?"
"No I mean. If I eat a bad apple and get sick and I drink this it'll go away, but if I keep eating the bad apple I'll get sick again." Escutcheon and Dusk took down the shelter. "That's why I had to wait to give it to you otherwise it would have been wasted." The two of them finished packing up the camp. "Dusk I don't think that we have enough water to make it through this desert if we stop and sleep. We need to keep walking until noon everyday and all night."
"Walking during the night is easy for me, but can you do it?" Escutcheon nodded. The two of them headed out as soon as their camp was taken apart. The moon wasn't even completely above the east end of the world. The two of them set out. Each passing hour the moon rose higher and the temperature fail lower and lower. Escutcheon wrapped and Dusk wrapped their blankets around them. By midnight the two of them had the tarp wrapped around the them and were walking side by side, doing everything they knew about trying to stay warm.
"How can it be so, so hot in during the day, and yet be so cold in during the night?" Escutcheon shivered, looking up at the waning moon. "How could Luna and Celestia let it get this far out of hoof like this? It's no where near this bad in southern Equestria, and that's nothing but desert."
"Who are Luna and Celestia?"
"Their the Alicorn Princesses that raise the moon and sun respectively."
"What's an Alicorn?"
"There the supreme being. The have tons of magic, can fly and have the endurance of earth ponies."
"Well I wish they'd share some of that endurance, this stupid desert sucks." She shivered and pushed up against Escutcheon hoping that he still had some body warmth left to share with her, as the two of them pushed deeper into the desert.