The egg faded away completely; in its place there’s a cute baby dragon. It doesn’t seem to have much substance, though.

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.

Carrie has never been able to hear the words of another dragon. While her ears are as keen as any other, for some reason her mind remains impervious for any dragon attempting to communicate with her. This was noted at an early age, and her adopted parents were shocked to find their beautiful daughter had anything even slightly wrong with her. Elvira, her mother, painstakingly worked to create a sign language so she could communicate with Carrie, and as time went by eventually Carrie became able to respond. While at first this was a beautiful and proud moment for both mother and child, Elvira's requests for all dragons to be taught the sign language was ignored as a waste of time, and Carrie found herself more isolated than ever, only being able to talk to her mother. Carrie would spend many hours while her mother was away at work lonely, imagining the unspoken words flitting past her brain while she lay there, ignorant of what they said.