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"I HATE THE SAND!" Xin Lan shouts and they leap upon your back to bury their face in your neck. "Big guy! Carry me!" They plead. You sigh and flick them in the back of the head with your tail. The small rabbit lets out a huff and they let go to continue walking miserably through the sand. Whatever books Ming had read did not do the land justice. An ocean of sand with no end and not a tree in sight. In the first few days your mind struggled to come to terms with it. You always half expected trees or a field of grass just over the next hill of sand or more urgently, a river. The thought of running out of something to drink had never crossed your mind and now you found yourself having to ration water with the others. You weren't sure which was worse the thought of never seeing water again or the idea of being stranded on a boat an unlimited source of undrinkable water. If that wasn't bad enough, the lack of landmarks made travel all but impossible. There had been more than one occasion where you thought you were traveling in a straight line only to find out hours later that you had veered horribly off course.
But neither were quite as dangerous as the temperature itself. The land seemed hell bent on killing you as it changed it's temperature on a whim. One day it could be below freezing forcing you all to thaw out what little reserves of water you had to drink and by the end of the day you all were struggling to continue on the intense heat of the sun. You recall the something similar the first time you climbed the mountain the Sacred Library was on but that paled in comparison. Regardless of how hot or cold it was, you would all end up losing a bit of water due to evaporation.
Your only saving grace was Ming. Every night she would look up at the stars and realign your course. Every day she would somehow manage to cook a decent meal with only the barest amount of water. You all made sure to drink up all the broth to try and preserve as much liquid as you could and yet every morning you all work up refreshed. It was almost supernatural how she managed to keep you all alive. Occasionally, she would make you walk back a bit or in a completely different direction for a day or so but you all continued on without any real complaint because it only meant one thing. An oasis. Every few days you would be led to these small patches of water where you all would restock on water and have an actual day of rest. You would often seen signs of people being here before. A burned out campfire, an article of clothing that was forgotten, or rarely a tool but never the people who they once belonged to. You had no doubt that eventually you would run into one of the natives of this land but you had no idea how the interaction would go.
