Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It enjoys playing in shallow water.

And look! It has grown fins, and likes to make bubbles in the water. 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.

A teeny, tiny, itty bit of inbreeding may or may not have given this dragon three eyes, a permanently glazed expression, and the ability to easily terrify the local populace. Sightings of her have had one unusual benefit, however; the less superstitious tend to fancy her mutations are due to poor water quality, and work to clean up the local ponds and rivers accordingly, benefiting all the other species that live there.