The first thing Hiccup was aware of was the heat. It was terrible. All-consuming. Stifling.

With effort, he opened his eyes, and noticed two things simultaneously. One: it was intensely bright. All he could see was whiteness, and he squeezed his eyes shut immediately. Two: he was in pain. A lot of pain. The ridiculous brightness had done nothing to help the pounding in his head, and had only given him a stabbing pain in his eyes for accompaniment.

His breath came deeply and harshly, almost in gasps, and he suddenly realized that what he wanted more than anything in the world was water. Cold refreshing water that cooled you from the inside out. Gods, was he thirsty.

With an almighty groan and a herculean show of strength, he managed to flip himself over so that he was now lying on his stomach. He propped himself shakily on his elbows, letting his head hang. Slowly, ever so slowly, he opened his eyes, and waited as they adjusted to the light. After a minute, the whiteness faded into reality, and Hiccup found himself staring at coarse yellow sand.

The next thing he noticed was that he was alone. For a second he almost laughed; how had he not noticed before? Toothless would have been in his face with a concerned warble as soon as he came to. Astrid would have been kneeling beside him, asking anxiously how he felt, if he was alright. The others - Fishlegs, Snotlout, the twins - they'd have been standing around him, too, in a little circle. At least that way, he'd have had some shade.

Thinking of the others put the thirst out of his mind for a minute, and he wondered, curiously, where they were. In fact, he realized as he held a hand to his aching head, he wondered where he was. Yes, that was important, wasn't it? Where was he?

Preparing himself for another onslaught of stupidly intense brilliance, he looked up and took his surroundings in for the first time. His stomach did a funny little flip, his breath came out in a disappointed huff, and he almost wished he were still unconscious. He sat up, after a brief struggle, and gazed in all other directions, but he was met with the same thing on all sides. The same hot rough sand beneath him stretched out as far as he could see, no matter which way he looked. The sun was blazing away in all its glory - huge, ostentatious, and kingly in a white-hot sky with no clouds. The sunlight and the heat were everywhere at once, and Hiccup could see no sign of relief anywhere - no shelter, none of his friends, none of their dragons. He couldn't see a single person, or even any evidence of a person.

With a discouraged sigh and the inability to give up that resides in every viking, Hiccup forced himself to stand up. He swayed dangerously on the spot, closing his eyes and putting his hand to his merrily drumming head. After the world righted itself once more, the young viking opened his eyes and realized, quite belatedly, that there was something draped around him. A satchel, around his shoulders. With uncoordinated fingers, he lifted it to eyesight and noticed, after a minute, that it wasn't his own. The unfamiliar fabric held no Berk crest, and instead had some other sort of crest emblazoned upon it. It looked something like a sun. Just what I wanted, Hiccup thought bitterly. More sun. He took a moment to glare up at the offending sun in the sky, and only received more piercing pain in return.

He should look inside the satchel, he knew. But suddenly he wondered whether he had the energy. The heat was horrendous, greedily zapping away all of the lilliputian energy he had left. He closed his eyes again, felt himself sway once more. The hopelessness of the situation weighed him down as his normally sharp mind finally came back with a report of his predicament. First of all, it was hot - too hot. Secondly, he didn't know where anyone was - didn't even know where he himself was. This, of course, could probably be explained away by his third problem - the constant aching pain in his head. Sluggishly, he raised a hand to the back of his head, and felt around gingerly. He winced. Yep, definitely a head wound. Someone or something had hit him hard, and now he couldn't remember a thing. Scrunching up his features in concentration, he tried hard to figure out what the last thing he remembered was. But all he could think of was the sweat rolling down his body, the hammering in his head, and the awful dryness of his throat and mouth. Opening his eyes again, he tried to snap himself back to attention. Remembering was not the most important thing right now.

He was stranded, with few supplies if the size of the satchel was anything to go by. It was hot, it was dry, it was endless. He stood, hurt and alone, and squinted in the sun of a harsh, entirely unfamiliar desert. The wind kicked up then, but it was hot and friendless. Hiccup reached up a hand and wiped off the sweat that had begun to run into his eyes. No, remembering was not the most important thing right now.

First came survival.