Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It perfectly depicts summer weather.

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.

For generations, mother dragons have told their hatchlings tales of the Year's Children—four seasonal hatchlings and their companions, each representing some aspect of their season.  The seasonal hatchlings are said to have mastered teleportation and, in some cases, freezing, while the companions seem to have only the magic natural to a hatchling of that breed.

Marissia, the embodiment of childhood, is the most feared of the Year's Children.  If a hatchling catches her fancy, she'll take it away with her, whether or not said hatchling wants to leave.  She feels she's doing hatchlings a favor by taking them away from boring adults and tiresome responsibilities to a place where they can play and be young forever (she's an expert at the growth-freezing spell).  Once Marissia tires of a hatchling, though (and she always does), she will abandon it during her search for a replacement, usually far from where it was hatched.