Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It glows brightly, and seems to prefer warm areas.

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.

Due to some birth defect, this dragon will never grow to his full size and even had difficulties growing to the size he is now. At first he was so small, weak and malformed that the people who caught and studied him mistook him for a huge rat. Later they found out that he is a dragon, but the nickname "Leader Of The Rats" stuck—and he quite likes it, so much so that he kept it even after he found a group of dragons of his own kind. They aren't related to him in any way, but they took him in and were pampering him so outrageously that he became quite cocky and has most of the adult Ember Dragons wrapped round his little claw.