It was nightfall but they kept on moving. They were surrounded by an endless field of grain-type crops with tall thin stalks that reached their heads. The entire orbed sky above was filled with dazzling stars to give them light and provided a guide to keep them on track.
In their usual pairs, Roshar and Cronan were at the back, Rue, Ezra along with the rattlers were in the middle, and Skinner and Dayrue at the front. It was as if they had to put the young and fragile ones in the center.
Dayrue and Skinner though, were further ahead as he had declared himself leader and that he was to be in front at all times. Several times they heard his loud voice break through the crops to reach them.
"You are such a liar. I don't believe it."
She signed to him about the previous Quest but he was having doubts about everything she revealed to him. Even Cronan and Roshar mumbled in the back. But Rue still wanted nothing to say to Ezra who was by her side.
With a rattler between them both and the long stalks zipping by they were greatly separated. But that did not stop his attempts.
She tried to get her mind away from him and practiced moving objects using telekinesis by touching the tooth around her neck. She pulled the hard bean crops from the stalks to let them fall on Ezra. By then yellow from the crops covered his shoulders and the top of his hood.
"Keep that up," he told her. "It's only a matter of time before I sneeze and wake up whatever beasties might be hiding in these crops."
He put one hand over his mouth to block it and whispered to her, "Don't tell anyone, but I could have sworn I saw a pair of red eyes back there."
"Then stop talking to me, Turill the second."
"Finally she talks," he said and shook his head and shoulders to get rid of the yellow dust. "You know I don't have enough self-discipline to do that. Besides, I like hearing your sweet voice even when you're antagonizing me."
"You're a piece of crap." She dropped another bean at his head but his hand slapped it away before it hit him.
"It's such a pity your father's here." He glimpsed behind to make out his tall figure beside Roshar between thin spaces in the crowded stalks. "I'm going to have to be careful about what I say. Remind me why you're mad at me again?"
"You already know why. You're the reason I'm here right now."
"I thought you were here because of your dad. Oh, I see. What you mean to say is you're here only because of me. Is that your confession of your hard dying feelings?"
"You're not the only one with hidden agendas," she said to him without looking his way. "I will stop you from committing genocide on innocents, mark my word."
"Stop me? You mean like how you succeeded at getting me to withdraw? Look at us, we're far far away from the safety of our borders. I know what I have to do and not even you can stop me."
Rue's head still did not turn to him as she said with rage, "I so hate you."
He made a heavy sigh before continuing to spark conversation but in a lower voice.
"Did I tell you I'm happy you came? Felt like I lost everything. I was a wandering soul who no one cared about until I remembered I still have you. I'm glad you're here alive and by my side."
His voice got stronger, "I'm not going to wait until my dying moment to tell you this and so I want you to know I lov…"
He stopped speaking mid-sentence as she had thrown another crop right onto his right eyelid to cause him a stinging pain.
"Agh! Crap!" he remarked with one hand over his injured eye.
His voice got louder in rage. "Look I know you mean well, but seriously you have the entire time when you get back to be annoying, I think you should take some time off. Enjoy the greenery," he said in a more cheerful tone as he picked a bloomed flower from a stalk in the dimness.
"For someone who is supposed to be mourning, your mind seems too preoccupied on juvenile things."
"It's weird how you're the one thing that helps take my mind off it. It's a good thing you're here." He reached the flower out to her.
She grabbed it and stamped on it with her boots. "How do you sleep at night?" she finally looked at him. Her eyes gleamed with rage even under the darkness of her hood.
"You must not have a proper heart, since you're here trying to woo me on a dangerous life threatening-mission--and with my dad right behind us! Are you crazy?"
Air puffed through her nostrils and her head flashed to face back in front.
"You're acting like you and--What's his name? Camel, that's it. I thought you guys broke up. How did that happen by the way? I'm shocked you never told me.
"Since we're here with all the time in the world, how about we talk about that, instead of lowering my self-esteem and attacking me with crops?"
"First, it's Callum, and I don't want to talk about it."
"Fine, I'll start a game of guessing how you got dumped. Let's see..."
Before he said another word, Rue, not wanting to hear his annoying guesses, told him, "Callum dumped me after I showed him my scar."
"What? A scar?" he asked with shock. "Is it that bad--Can I see it?"
"Never," she growled and said not another word to him.
By the time it was daylight they had long escaped the claustrophobic fields. They no longer walked so far apart as they listened to Dayrue and Cronan talk about their previous Quest.
It all started after Skinner claimed he was being lied to the entire night and day as he did not believe anything from Dayrue.
"Enlighten us white assassin. Like those beasties we escaped back there. I want no more of purple assassin's lies."
Dayrue kept her hand at the side of her head close to Skinner and so that the others behind could see. They were allowed to tell about it since they were on one such Quest. However for the average Mera folk, especially ones not from the Zinbera-xefi, they were not to make a habit of divulging about the happenings on these Quests.
She went on to sign about the most annoying Ogres that never stopped talking and singing. They were nasty, gross, and reminded her of him. She enjoyed slaughtering them.
Cronan noted that they did not pass through the same territories but he would since he insisted. The Witches were the threat and they had to cross nine Domains. Out of the ten Meras that went only they two made it back.
Dayrue continued to describe the old wrinkly beings as flying hags on wooden sticks that were always meddling with nature. She was not surprised at what happened to them.
After one of their many attempts at messing with the dead, a corrupted spirit began to possess them. It only affected the Witches and soon the undead that was under their control started to spread like a plague. Neighboring Domains reported corpses rising from the ground and causing chaos.
She continued about fighting possessed Witches that could create fireballs that shot from the sky, woke the dead so hands popped from the grounds trying to pull you under, skeleton armies, and trees that only bore poisonous fruits.
Cronan however, and to much of Rue's amusement, went on about Fairies that gave them light to drive back the night creatures from the Dark-night Domain, sea horses that helped them ride across an impossible stretch of water, and packs of giant friendly cats that insisted on playing with them so they had to sneak away while they were asleep to escape.
"You seem to have hated it, so why did you go?" Skinner asked Dayrue but continued to speak mimicking a feminine tone before she could answer. "Don't tell me it was because your sweetheart went and you couldn't stand being away from him?"
Dayrue signed to let him know she fell for him while she was on the Quest, so that was illogical.
"How can you love someone in such a short span you were on the Quest for? That's not enough time to know someone. What if he was a rogue? Missie, your heart is not proper.
"It's either that or you made it up and told a lie to make others believe you once had a love life and not some lifelong loner."
"Why would I do that?" signed Dayrue while giving him a hard knock on the forehead.
"He told me he loved me before he died."
"You were hallucinating," he said while rubbing his head.
Dayrue looked away from him and her bored expression went back onto her face. He continued to mumble to himself.