Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. Its eyes glow brightly at night, and it enjoys attacking insects and small animals.

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.

Trikreen started out life as a normal hatchling of Herk's clan. He loved to hide from the adult dragons and explore the deepest niches of the caverns attached to the clan's caves. One day he ventured further than even Peble had ever come and he found a dark pool of black water deep under the mountain. When he gazed into it, something gazed right back into his soul.

Ever since that day Trikreen has been possessed by an elemental spirit of shadows, which is bound to him. This allows him to recognize the darkness in other dragons' souls and has turned every single one of Trikreen's scales black as the shadows around that pool. It has also stopped Trikreen from aging.

Apart from that the spirit has lost all its power by being bound to the hatchie's body, and while Trikreen might be more secretive than before he is still basically the same harmless hatchling.