Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It perfectly depicts winter 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.

Varelja, the embodiment of hardship, is the most serious of the four seasonals.  She works to alleviate suffering, and yet many of those she tries to help are too far gone for even her growth-halting spell or Telnyn's limited healing magic to save.  Thanks to Winterhope's help, she's beginning to form a tentative alliance with Albeo, a traveling white dragon healer who is no stranger to odd patients, and is starting to bring him some of her most desperate cases.  Perhaps, with Albeo's help, she'll be able to smile again someday.