Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It occasionally shoots small puffs of smoke from its nose, like it’s trying to breathe fire.

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.

The  Incubator used to be a very inquisitive youngster. She could be seen scrambling everywhere around the cave, feeling the rocky ground under her claws, sniffing the scents the air carried to her nose. It was when she was old enough to explore the world outside, unaccompanied, that things started to go wrong. She met a cute little fluffball that seemed edible, and small enough to be swallowed. However, the little fluffball disagreed, and in a sudden explosion of aggression began pecking madly at the hatchling's eyes. The dragon dashed off in panic, her eyes closed to protect them... and ran straight off a steep cliff.

She has stopped growing since this unfortunate event, has been blind in one eye, with two crippled hind legs and a fractured right wing. Unexpected sounds terrify her, and she has a serious phobia of feathers and anything yellow. The  Incubator now hides behind the adult dragons, deep in the cave among the eggs, under the guise of 'incubating them'.