Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It has a large stone on its tail.

And look! It has grown wings! It must be close to maturing.

Young dragons are relatively defenseless. They are born with relatively soft scales, which are shed and replaced with harder ones as the hatchling matures. Once a hatchling’s wings grow in, it typically marks the beginning of maturation. At this point they are often capable of hunting on their own and are usually left alone by their mother.

Bramble the Handsome was like every other hatchling until he caught the dragon pox. Now normally this disease would not cause problems in one so young, but he was unfortunate enough to also contract pneumonia shortly afterward, forcing the white dragons to freeze him in order to save him. He was not the only dragon afflicted this way and the cave was lucky to have one youngster stricken by it while other caves lost 4-10 averaging.

Some dragons think the reason he got sick though has more to do with the fact his parents are half-siblings and that his grand father took three mates. More than any other dragon in the cave.