Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon.

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.

This dragon's quite fond of the phrase "slow and steady wins the race," perhaps because he's quite slow himself. Constantly distracted by anything and everything, the allure of flowers and shiny rocks and streams bubbling in the distance constantly convinces him to slow his pace. His parents are happy to see him taking such an interest in the world, but they've still had more than one unpleasant shock where they realize their son has fallen so far behind that he's no longer in sight!