Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It always seems to be picking over its scales.

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.

When Precious hatched she immediately had the attention of all Lumina dragons around her. Even freshly out of the egg, her scales already had a shimmer seldom found even in the prettiest of adults who had gone through dozens of scale sheddings already. As she matured her beauty became more prominent, until some of her elders decided to freeze this perfection on its pinnacle in fear that it might be lost upon full maturation. Others have the terrible suspicion, they were more afraid she would outshine them all once grown up and took out the competition this way.

Precious herself is too young and naive to suspect foul play and simply enjoys being doted upon.