"You won't sneak up on her, with all those eyes." Rian hear them whisper quite clearly. She was used to the comments, had heard them forever.

Dragons asked her sometimes, too. "What do you see with all those eyes? Is it hard to focus?"

Rian just shrugged. She didn't know how to explain that he didn't see anything through them. They looked like eyes, sure, but they saw sound. A sharp clanging if danger approached. A soft, sweet tinkling bell if a loved one was near. And once they'd alerted her to the presence, she could focus in and hear conversations, hear snakes sliding through the grass, hear the scent of danger carried on a breeze.

When Rian was overwhelmed by all the bells and sound, she retreated to her own room, deep in the lair, with a solid door barred against entry, and retired to her bed and tried to hear nothing, but even then, there might be a bug walking across the wall, or a dragon walking down the corridor two levels above. She wrapped herself tightly in his blanket, pulling it over all of her eye-ears, wishing once again that just once in her life, she could truly understand what silence sounded like.