Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It’s very festively colored.

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.

When Joyful arrived at the clan shortly after her older sister Triumphant, she found that the clan was not only big enough to absolutely need a second Christmas dragon, but it also had a great hatchling population that she immediately felt at home with. Joyful has a lot lighter mood than her sister and doesn't look upon Christmas as such a serious business as her and is quite content to have arrived second.

In the years since her arrival Joyful has become a leader of sorts in the hatchling community and Jolly and Mittens are her partners in crime.