Aww... It’s a cute baby dragon. It has bright blue eyes, and is as clumsy as any other hatchling, but it never seems to get injured.

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.

A snowstorm was raging when Zephiel was born, and the temperature was dangerously low, near the point at which the baby would die. His parents and siblings desperately tried to keep him warm, but it was no use; and so his father braved the fury of the tempest, keeping his child tucked firmly under a wing, risking death in that icy world as he raced to the castle of his best friend, the red dragon Lucian. He managed to make his way there against the odds, and then the drake kept the newborn warm with his flames until the storm passed and Luke and his family could leave.

Perhaps because his first view of the world was of snow, Zephiel loves winter, and he often makes his parents panic because of how well he blends in with the drifts. Friendly, he likes scarves, and always wears several at any given point in time. He also enjoys bringing hot meals to the less fortunate during the chilly season-or drags them back to his family's cave so they have somewhere warm to stay.