Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It hides in dark spaces and lunges at anything that gets too close. Small piles of bones are accumulating outside of its “lairs”...

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.

Ciarda is the only true child of her parents, as the other two were adopted, and as a result of this she has been spoilt beyond compare. She gets the most comfy bedding, the spot nearest the fire every evening, and it is always her for whom curfew gets extended. She frequently boasts about this to her siblings, gloating in her superiority, but their complaints to their parents fall on deaf ears with protests that they love all their children equally. Just Ciarda seems to be more equal than the others. What her siblings resent most is not the gifts, but the attention that is bestowed on her, and how what is excusable for her is a crime beyond measure should any other dare to do it. Her work is always the most praised, her talents just that much more special, and all the family friends fawn over how adorable it is for them to have a child of their own blood. Ciarda is well aware of this, and exploits it to her advantage, even lying to get her siblings in trouble on a simple whim.