Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It’s very festively colored.

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.

Treading Sweetly is one of Phoenix's dragons. She is a curious hatchling with a particular fondness for the arts: paint, pencil, charcoal, and she also takes an interest in Phoenix's lyre. Although she isn't particularly good, being just a hatchling, Sweetly finds much enjoyment in creating pretty things, and her scribbly drawings can often be found on the sides and floors of the cave walls. Though primitive, most of the other dragons find them endearing and pleasant, and Phoenix doesn't mind them either, as long as they stay confined to the surface of the rock, and not on anything substantially more important, such as another dragon's face (as other hatchlings are certainly more apt to do) or the temptingly paperish limbs of Charta de Vitam and Home to Ink and Graphite.