"To hear a dragon sing is one of the rarest and most beautiful things you will ever have the fortune to experience," Asair had once told his young daughter, Skullette as he led her into the forest to teach her how to track the many beasts that lingered on the island. They weren't as dangerous as the ones always raiding their village, stealing their fish, sheep, and any food they managed to harvest. These only attacked if provoked, and they were only here to track and observe what they found, not hunt. As he spoke, he took note of certain details around that would lead them to their target. "I heard it once when I was a boy, never again, but forget I did not."

"Why would a dragon sing?" asked a curious Skullette. She was eight years old, her eyes flitting around as they searched. Small for her age but bright and curious enough to want to soak up everything around her, images, sight, sound, smells, Skullette was determined to learn. Of what teacher was uncertain since it always seemed to change with every new discovery.

And Asair was never one to discourage it; he was the one she got it from in the first place. Asair Aleshanee was known for quite a few things in the small village of Berk that had built up over the years since he washed on its shores years ago, a refugee with nothing and nowhere else left to go. And one of those things that had endured through his youth in an island that was more likely to charge first and think later was the need to question things rather than simply accept without thinking it through. It had annoyed the adults as he had grown up, and it annoyed now the adults he had grown up with as children, not just because he encouraged his exuberant daughter to do so as well, but because he supported their own children to ask questions they had little patience for, too. Especially one who hadn't needed encouragement to start with his own curiosities and asking his own questions, and certainly didn't need more to continue thinking that way.

The Chief's boy was smart, but skinny and small even for his young six years when compared to the other children, and nowhere near as strong. Everyone knew he was different, but for other reasons than the way Asair and his daughter were different. Everyone thought he was bad luck, and okay, so the boy was clumsy, but he really had good intentions, and could learn if someone could take the time to teach him in a way he'd better understand. Everyone knew the other children made fun of him and isolated him, but often enough times Asair felt he was among the very few who actually cared enough to try and stop it. Maybe because Hiccup reminded him of himself as a child. Asair had since changed from the scrawny young boy he'd been, but he was still one to rather use his mind than his fists.

After all, tracking and trapping, with any animal really, required patience, skill, and the ability to factor in the terrain and use all your senses so your prey didn't sneak up on you and turn you into the hunted. Perhaps Hiccup would do better in this area, or at least would be interested in seeing how his trapping mechanisms worked. He was already considering taking the boy into the least dangerous spots in the forest to show him, although Stoick would probably prefer Hiccup be more like him.

Well, good thing Asair hardly gave a damn what Stoick preferred if it made Hiccup happy.

The boy took after his mother, of that Asair could see. Inquisitive and a fighter but not in the traditional Viking way. They were both horrible Vikings if one were to compare them to everyone else. But as Asair had told the woman back when they were just kids trying not to get eaten, that wasn't exactly such a bad thing. Times changed, and somebody ought to start that change.

There was obligation due to Valka, his late mother taken before Hiccup could even know her face, yet a fondness that had him looking out for the lad any time he could. Didn't seem to make any difference since no matter how hard the boy tried, no one took any patience or pity dealing with him, not even Stoick.

Asair imagined the six-year-old sitting in front of the flames of the fireplace while he and Stoick would discuss matters as the Chief gave strict instructions on how to keep the fire alight. Of course, the boy would shoot a volley of questions ranging from why a fire could only burn so much wood at once or why it needed wood to stay alight in the first place. Asair would pause to answer them as well as he could, although for some the best he could come up with was, 'Well...actually, I don't know. Maybe with a bit of experimenting, you can find out, though.' But he remembered how angry Stoick had gotten at Hiccup that night. Even though he never admitted it, Asair was sure the boy went to sleep crying.

Maybe that was why he encouraged his daughter to seek him out. The children thought her bad luck because of the...circumstances of her birth. She didn't have many friends, Hiccup didn't have many friends, maybe they could find common ground and be each other's friends. So far, it seemed to be working.

Asair chuckled softly, his steps utterly silent along the ground despite the rough terrain. "Keep your voice down before you scare off anything we might find, or worst, scare it into coming after us," he said in a low tone. Skullette quickly nodded, putting her finger to her lip. "As for the answer to your question, everyone has different views. Berk believes dragons to be nothing but brutes incapable of thought or the ability to make such a sound, but on my island, the home of your ancestors -"

"Katala?" she chirped.

"Yes, but what have I told you about interrupting?"

"It's rude..."

"That's right-"

"Sorry. And I just interrupted again, didn't I? Sorry."

"Don't worry, I'll let it slide this time because you're right." Asair helped her climb over a fallen tree in their path. "As I was saying, our tribe on that island, the Askari, believed that when a dragon sing, it's because they're full of such emotion that they wish to express rather than hold it inside and let it consume them. Whether it be devastation, anger, or the even rarer case, happiness."

"Hmm." Skullette's nose scrunched up and her brows furrowed as she went into deep thought, twisting the ring hanging from the small chain around her neck. Aruna's ring, still too big to fit on her small fingers. A pang in his heart struck him whenever he looked at it too long, but he managed to shake it off. "But they said dragons don't really feel anything."

"Your mother never thought so," said Asair, stopping behind a cluster of trees, spotting something. "She and I believed dragons were more than just mindless, bloodthirsty beasts. One thing you should know is that you never do, can't, won't, ever know everything. Whether it's about a person, animal, history, or simple things. Which is why you never accept what you're told blindly. From another perspective, dragons could think us just as bad we think of them."

"Then why do we kill them if we don't know the whole story?" asked Skullette as she crouched beside him to peer through the plants and trees to see what he saw.

Fifty feet away in a small clearing stood a low cave on a small hill where two baby Zipplebacks were napping in the shade. Her eyes widened. This was the closest to a dragon she had been outside the raids, and even then there wasn't much opportunity to see them when you running away or hiding from them in a hut with the other children where the most they could do was wait for it all to be over and hope there was something to go home to.

Here, though, they just looked so peaceful. It amazed her.

"Well, good question," said Asair in a soft voice. "We don't have much choice nor time when they attack us. It's kill or be killed, and we have to defend our island. It's what these Vikings have done for centuries, although..." he trailed off.

"No one's ever tried to find the cause?" she questioned, taking the pause in speech as permission to fill in the blanks herself. "Of what's making them attack us?"

Her father nodded. "Your mother and I tried to figure that out, but there was never enough time, although it's still a puzzle I'd like to solve." He gestured to the scene before them. "They only attack if they think they're in danger. From what I've seen, they usually eat mostly fish, and sure, there's bound to be the occasional dragon sheep or fish-snatcher, but in swarms? There has to be a reason. I just haven't figured out what yet." Then Asair turned to smile at her and she met his constellation eyes. "But maybe one day you can, and if you figure it out for me, you can come tell me, okay?"

❇❇❇

Sometimes, Skullette felt bad when she remembered she never would get to tell him the answer he'd been searching for. Especially with dragons and Vikings now living in peace. What she dreaded most was forgetting. She worried she was forgetting a lot of things, like colors or how the sky looked at night, the stars. Her father's face was one of them. Sometimes she could picture him almost perfectly, but other times, her mind's eye could only conjure up a fading and blurring face with no way to reconstruct the image.

One thing she never would, never had, forgotten was his eyes. His constellation eyes that some nights when she forgot what the starry night sky looked like, she would only recall them and have a clear image.

Another thing Asair Aleshanee had been known for in his youth and life was his eyes. Black as the abyss yet so crystal clear that they shone reflections like diamonds, eyes so warm they lured you in with a single gaze.

Rumor had it that within those very eyes resided a million constellations. An entire galaxy of stars from Orion's belt to Cassiopeia. Almost no one on Berk had ever gotten close enough to prove that theory, although she herself knew it to be true. One of the few people to have seen those eyes were Skullette and her mother, but since Aruna's death, no one but her had ever seen them that close again. She could remember being tucked into bed or listening to him tell her a story, weaving intricate and wild tales beyond her imagination. And most of all, she could remember as she fell asleep doing this, she'd see every inch of every star within and trace every constellation she had ever heard of.

But she would never see them again, even if by some miracle he was alive.

And maybe if he were around now, that would make this day just a touch more bearable no matter how much she hated it.

Skullette had never been one to think of her birthday as a day of celebration. In fact, she'd rather it fade into ignorance and nonexistence to where not even she knew of it. Even on this day where she apparently turned the age she officially became an adult, a day most celebrate with pride and joy, considering teens who survived for so long throughout the dragon war were lucky to reach such an age. She wished no one could remember. Yet, no one in the village seemed to be able to forget, one of several reasons she hated the day she was born.

In the years prior on this day, without fail, villagers would look up from what they may have been doing to watch at her as she passed, and even if she couldn't see them, she could feel their overbearing stares. They all knew the...circumstances of her birth. Another reason she'd much rather forget this day and its importance.

Everyone knew, a fact that hadn't been in her favor when she'd once been one of the village outcasts. It had even been one of the reasons she was considered different.

When her father, Asair, had arrived as a refugee during his childhood, the people of Berk had believed him at first to be a demon because his skin was darker than any of them had ever seen, with a complexion the dark shade of charred wood and deep black pools for eyes. It took years for her father to convince them of otherwise, but still, their superstitions were present, just as they were present with her growing up where she would hear children and adults alike whispering that her very presence on Berk was bad luck. And what had occurred the night she was born hadn't exactly helped her case.

They said on the night her mother, Aruna had given birth to her, Skullette had been born without breath in her body. That for a moment, she had been born dead. Or at least had been thought so. Dead for a few moments, alive the next, breathing and wailing like any other newborn.

Superstitions had made people believe originally that her father was a demon. And it was these same beliefs that made them see her as a demon child. A bad omen. Someone who had returned to life because neither Valhalla nor Helheim had desired her in their realms, and both had turned her away.

Throughout her childhood, most had shunned her due to this, believed her very presence would bring nothing but ill. And who could blame them? Every year, something bad happened on her birthday, or just one look at how bad things seemed to happen to people who got close to her would prove them right. Few, and only few, thought different, her father being among them. Sometimes Skullette pondered if her mother had believed those rumors. That she had been born evil. And if that was why her mother decided she couldn't live knowing she'd produced a monster.

It took years for anyone on Berk to see her different, and even now some still believed her to be a demon because of her darker complexion than everyone else on the island and the rumors surrounding her birth. When her father was taken along with her eyesight, some had taken pity on her. Then as she drove to prove herself, prove she was good, that she wasn't any different than anyone regardless of everything about her that said otherwise, when she hit that Night Fury, things had begun to change. After that, it was a matter of time as she'd progressed, bringing home dragon heads and hunting any hiding in the forest, setting traps and such like her father had before her.

Sure, now everyone treated her better, but that doesn't mean they ever forgot what happened the night she was born. And whether or not they were now in a state of peace rather than war, that didn't meant she felt any different towards this particular day. After Skullette's childhood best friend, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, had defeated the Red Death, brought home his long-long and thought dead brother, Taran, or Night as was his name among the dragons, and essentially brought an end to the three century war between dragons and vikings, it had been about a year since. And she was pretty sure she had been adamant about not celebrating her birthday.

Yet no one seemed to listen. After all, it wasn't everyday one turned 18, right?

Her mother's sister and Skullette's aunt Svanhild had come back from a long voyage recently to meet with another island far off, and needless to say, after being gone for almost a year, she had found all the changes to be...interesting, to say the least. Skullette had tried to explain the best she could, but the language barriers between them made that difficult considering she was practically blind...and her aunt was completely deaf. But thankfully someone, with the help of Svanhild's husband, Thorsten interpreting, had managed to break it down for her. She had been rightfully frustrated and disgruntled, but after a few weeks, she was slowly easing into this new lifestyle of Berk despite of how it differed from everything she had gone her whole life knowing.

Svanhild had even found a Thunderdrum that seemed to take a liking to her, a dragon Skullette had affectionately named Blast. It was ironic if not odd since it was rumored that it was a Thunderdrum that had rendered Svanhild deaf to begin with. But Skullette liked to think they had bonded through their shared traits.

Skullette herself had yet to find a dragon of her own. On one hand, she was just fine with that; why wouldn't she be? Flying terrified her. It required utter trust on her part since she had little to no idea what was happening once her feet were completely off the ground. Yet on the other; she couldn't describe it--she just felt out of place and left behind knowing everyone had gained a sort of special bond with their own dragons much like Hiccup had with Toothless, though theirs were stronger, Toothless being Hiccup's first friend after her who along with Night had actually accepted him as he was without any prompting once he gained their trust.

But Skullette just didn't seem to find that dragon she just seemed to click with as they had. Her friends' dragons had begun to trust her enough, but that was where it ended. Maybe it was the lingering memories of the night her father was taken that kept her from allowing her to get too close. Either way, whatever was holding her back, she needed to learn to let go of her past if she wanted to keep up with the future.

Except it was easier said than done.

After escaping from her (unwanted) birthday celebration, Skullette had found herself in the woods by the sound of the birds chirping and the increase in trees along with the steadily more difficult terrain. Oddly enough, despite the uncertainty of seeing darkness with one eye and only shadows and blurs of color in the other, she felt safe within the forest. Perhaps because growing up, it had been her place of refuge or the place her friendship with Hiccup had grown and thrived, because out in nature, there was hardly anyone to make fun of her or him, to push her over, or blame her for things she didn't do. Though over the years, no one dared make fun of her now and some even admired her, she had never forgotten, and part of her still had yet to forgive.

Years ago when she could still see, she and Hiccup had first come in here after a Dragon Raid that ended with a quarter of the town's people needed to be seen by Gothi - the Village elder and healer. Hiccup had tied strips of his shirt to the trees to help him find his way back out should they ever get lost. And afterwards it ended up being the place of many of their misadventures, one of which almost resulted in them getting eaten alive because both of them were too curious for their own good.

But after years and years of following the same path, Skullette didn't need to see to know her way- her feet knew, but she kept markers of the sounds and the different textures of the woods around her just in case, especially wandering alone.

Speaking of Hiccup, maybe she might allow him to give her just a small party with him and their newfound friends in the past year. Sometimes it still astounded her how he could forgive them all who had once tormented and bullied him relentlessly, and accepted them as friends. Then again, for all she knew, maybe he hadn't, just as she, not fully anyway. Still, spending time with Hiccup and her friends didn't seem like a bad way to celebrate her birthday should she be forced to celebrate at all.

Skullette was still lost in her thoughts when a sound reached her ears. A sound that made her stop dead in her tracks as her heart began pounding in her chest. She knew what that sound was, everyone did. It sent shivers up her spine, and it took everything in her not to bolt. Running was dangerous for her; she could run right into the dragon or into a tree and not even know it until it was too late.

The sound was a mix between nails on a chalkboard and the wind blowing through the trees, coming from the ground below her feet.

"The Whisper," Skullette breathed, staying as still as possible.

Suddenly, no more than ten feet in front of her, the ground burst open and one of the most deadliest dragons known to Viking kind shot out of the earth and began looking around sniffing the air as if it was looking for something. In her shock and fear, she fell onto her back and scrambled in the opposite direction, breathing heavily as she kept one hand on the hilt of her sword.

She stayed still, not sure if it was because she feel the pounding of her heart in her ears, or if it was her instincts telling her to do so. Yet at this position, she heard its labored breathing and the way it moved slower than the last one she had the unluckiness to meet when she was younger. It was hurt.

They both seemed to stay there for what seemed an eternity, as if both were trying to tell who was a bigger threat to who, until the clouds above began to part and the sun's rays shone through, setting onto the Whispering Death's scales. Letting out a roar in pain, the dragon hurriedly buried itself back into the ground.

As her heartbeat slowed, she waited until there was silence before finally letting out a breath of relief. "Well," she mumbled to herself, "I guess my birthday really is the unluckiest day of the year for me."

(Author's note: I honestly intended to post this chapter two days ago, but with my father around, I don't have much time to actually write. So anyway, I really hope you like this! And...there was something else I wanted to add but I can't remember what it was.... Oh well ^-^)