Pieces.

The desert is not an easy place to live.

Here, there is very little water. Streams, rivers, ponds, swampy, magical sections of unstable earth where land-dwelling creatures can breathe through their very skins; these places barely exist here. They are hidden, they dry up. Rainstorms are infrequent and fleeting - there is more fire-starting lightening then rain.

The sun is impatient. It beats upon you without mercy - only the shade may save you, if you can find enough of it. The sand is coarse and abrasive; the plants, even, are dry and hard and scrape at you as you walk by. 

Your mind plays tricks on you in the desert. You think you can survive, that you are eternal and cannot be harmed by something as basic as an ecosystem. You are wrong. There are few resources here. What resources there are, you must be wise and lucky enough to find. Do not expect help; the plants and the animals will keep their secrets.

The desert, I have found, takes a little piece of you away when you are not looking. Suddenly you awake one day beneath the sun, with the ravens cackling as though they know (because, most likely, they do) - and you are not the same. The sand has gotten into your mouth. The plants have scraped away some flesh. The sun has burned your face. You have drunk, but do not realize that you are still thirsty. 

This is the desert. You will survive, but you will be a little thinner, a little older, and a little darker.