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.

Essentially Non-Perfect's favourite meal is toast with butter and jam. Raspberry jam, guava jam, marula jelly, it doesn't really matter to him so long as it's sweet and sticky and yummy.

Essentially Non-Perfect, though still fairly young for a dragon, suffers from the draconic equivalent of dementia. He remembers things that happened in his life before he was frozen. He can describe with great clarity the caves he lived in before being teleported to Lagie's caves. "In those days," he boasts, "I just ate the jam, without the toast."

Nowadays, though, because of his failing memory, Essentially Non-Perfect doesn't always remember what he ate the day before. In fact, on one occasion recently, when asked how his toast breakfast had tasted, he responded with great indignity, "I don't eat toast. Never have," leaving the dragon who'd asked the question feeling rather perplexed as there were clearly toast crumbs and dollops of jam scattered all around Essentially Non-Perfect's feet.