Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It glows brightly, and seems to prefer warm areas.

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.

The Wounded Inferno is a frozen ember hatchling. He is quite fragile and sickly, and he is often confined to his nest. As an egg, he was snatched from the abandoned pile with only three days and eight hours left, and brought to the clan, where Merlin's Shadow, a magi dragon, and Witewing, a white dragon, worked to keep him alive. They eventually succeeded at hatching him with magic, but he was abnormally small. However, his health was forever damaged by the cruel human who had neglected him before they threw him into the abandoned pile, and as a result, to spare him suffering, Merlin's Shadow halted his growth. Since then, he is able to enjoy the quiet life of a hatchling, and he does not have to hurt his health to help his clan hunt. However, his only regret is that he can never grow or have children, and he watches with longing and sadness as the other hatchlings play in the meadows and woods while he sits at the edge of the cave where his clan's dragons call home.