Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It has wings—but no hind legs—and it enjoys flying by the ocean.

And look! It has grown another set of 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.

Their relationship went unsaid and was ambiguous, and he only went along with her whimsical ideas for the fun of it. One day, she went out to sea while looking for pearls, and rumor had it she was captured and killed. This devastated him despite not having a deep relationship with her, but the pain was all the more real.

He, to this day, cannot help but ask what would have happened if Chaldene lived.