Although pokemon need not evolve to reach sexual maturity – a fact which speeds life along for many a pokemon breeder – it is most common for wild pokemon to complete their evolution before reproduction, so that they may gain the power to protect their young from the violence of nature. But Drakloak think themselves strong, so they have their children early, and once they learn better they try to make up for the risk they've taken by always carrying their Dreepy on their heads.
It is said that parents who lost their children – whether to accidents, crimes, or war – turn into Drakloak and Dreepy after their deaths, and protect their kids in the afterlife like they could not in the world of the living. Yet it is also said that Drakloak are the spirits of dragon pokemon killed during cave-ins, and the slow process of crushing and fossilization has come to feel normal to them, so they are never comfortable without something above their eyes and between their horns.
The Galarian custom of wearing hats is generally held to have originated from one trainer's effort to console their Drakloak after its Dreepy was lost – and perhaps just as importantly, to keep their other pokemon off its head. Contemporary fashions have grown far less serpentine, for what began as mimicry evolved into a sort of armor to protect against headshots from wild Dragapult, and then into high fashion divorced from any function at all. But whatever the shape of the item or the wearer, Drakloak and its line remain far more likely to perceive a kindred spirit of anyone who covers their head, especially if they do so with a pokemon; one Drakloak lost in the Unova region was reputed to protect the local Sigilyph as if they were its own kin.