Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It has bright, shiny scales and loves to play in the sunlight.

And look! It’s grown a forked spade at the end of its tail and long, tufted whiskers! 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 unarmed human travellers kneeled so they were eye-to-eye with the little blue adolescent. "Walla walla walla walla walla walla walla," the one with a piece of paper said. Ekurhuleni licked a nostril and cocked his head. He had no idea what the noises coming out of her mouth meant, but she sounded reverent. "If you're looking for my mum, she's picking passionfruit in Grove 3," he said tentatively. The human with the pink ears wrinkled his head. "Walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla," he said. "Okay then, uh, we don't have a leader," Ekurhuleni tried, "but this is how we make decisions..." The humans' chattering sped up. "Oh, that's not it. I am called Ekurhuleni, and I am 23 years... Oh, I know. I'll just ask questions. Chirp for 'yes', and purr for 'no'..." Several of the humans chattered at once while making motions—"Walla walla walla walla walla walla walla walla!" Ekurhuleni sighed and twisted his whiskers. No wonder it's hard staying diplomatic with humans.