A solitary youth stands aloof over a dune. He is shrouded in the style of the true desert-dweller, those of the Sunataki no Sabaku: The eternal clan of the desert. They live free, born from the sands, and returning to their city only when duty calls. This boy is part of their fifth generation of shinobi. He is trained in the art of the puppet, native to this land. This boy is Sasori, and he has been selected as this generation's finest, under the tutelage of his grandmother, Chiyo. As the dawn breaks over the vast ocean of sand, skimming a sheet of golden light across the dints and mounds of the desert, small dark seeds of evil are growing in this boys mind. Sadistic images of Hitokugutsu, the human puppet, flash through his psyche, and idea in the womb. He sees a revolution, though his grandmother would be disgusted. He sees a potential army, the most obedient kind, though his grandmother would call it mass murder.
"Let us not tell her," he whispers, his secrets carried safe by the winds. "Let us keep this here, buried in the sand, until the time comes for it to crawl out as a scorpion, small and deadly. It shall grow from there, until power and immortality are all that is left. Let the seed be planted here. "
Murmuring the prayer of his people in the ancient tongue, Sasori begins the trek home, while a newborn scorpion crawls from the sand where his feet had been, watching the retreat with beady eyes. His prayers will not go unheeded. The scorpion shall grow. It scuttles back to the sanctuary of the underground as the sun scorches overhead, destroying the fertility of the land for another day, burning away the waters and the chill. There is no such thing as the "Godforsaken desert", for the desert is god of these lands.
In the desert it doth wait
Preying on all, no mercy display
The scorpions scurry with sickening grace
To poison all who stand in the way.