Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. Its scales give off a beautiful golden gleam.

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.

Once Feather grew her wings, she flew everywhere, even inside the cave. She seemed to forget that she had legs and would almost outright refuse to walk for an extended period of time. She seems to have grown out of that stage, but her wings are still very precious to her; she preens them more often than most adults do, which tends to make them a little red and irritated.