Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. You have trouble focusing when it gets angry.

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.

Cerebrospinal has been trying to use her psychic manipulation in order to force sapience—or at least drake-level intelligence—into a microbial mat. Some of the other dragons have suggested she try working with cheese microbiota, as cheeses are already known to be capable of developing intelligence, but she will only work with disgusting, greenish slimes and oozes—the more toxic the better. Occasionally, individuals disappear for a few days and turn up befuddled and stupefied, and those with a strong enough will to recover from the magic report that Cerebrospinal was trying to mind-swap them with a hivemind of one-celled organisms. Cerebrospinal hopes to invent a new type of enchanted dragonoid which she can make an army of, in order to take over the world.