Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It has brightly colored fins on its back.

And look! It has grown larger fins! 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.

SONS was found wandering alone in a rainstorm, with the hide below her left wing swollen by a terrible burn. For weeks she seemed to know no language, even as the swelling subsided and revealed a single inexplicable human word branded into her flesh. Eventually, with the help of the Pink 'Un, she regained her health and voice, though she would always be smaller and more fragile than others of her kind. She has no memory of what happened to her before, but took the brand-mark for her name so that those who marked her would know they had sealed their own fate.