A/n: This is something TNTkinetic suggested for D:OoB, but it was too late to get put in there. (Just a note, I'm not taking any suggestions right now, this is a proper one-chapter-only oneshot, and any suggestions put out there are gonna have to be ignored 'cause I don't have time for them.)
On with the show, then.
Gothi stood in the forest, surrounded by the terrible terrors she'd adopted. They were supposed to be helping her find herbs and ingredients for medicines, but all they'd managed so far was to find the nearest source of water and completely clear it of fish. So, she had dinner, but no medicine.
She grumbled to herself, not understood or even making comprehensible noise, but able to communicate her frustration to her terror friends. Unfortunately, they were a rambunctious bunch that rather enjoyed causing havoc, so they didn't stop their playing to save the elder any grief.
The smallest of the terrors wasn't in the group surrounding her, which was slightly odd - the dragons usually travelled in packs and rarely separated. She brought her hands together and gave the other dragons a questioning look - where's the smallest?
The others looked about each other, suddenly realising that there was someone missing from their ranks. They shrugged in unison, soon forgetting their confusion to concentrate on wreaking more havoc. Gothi sighed, scouring the nearby trees for a sign of the wayward terror.
She was soon rewarded, as it came stumbling out from behind a clump of trees, dragging something along with it. Gothi hobbled over to check it out, discovering that the small dragon was holding a bird in its mouth. A quite large bird, compared to the dragon holding it, that looked absolutely terrified at its current predicament.
Gothi prized it out from the terror's mouth, stroking it for a while to calm it. Once it looked less scared, she opened her palms, and waited for it to take flight. After almost a minute of waiting, not only had the situation become awkward, but it had become clear that the bird, for whatever reason, wasn't going to fly.
The elder took this to mean that the bird wanted to stay. She placed it on the ground next to her, and held out one of the herbs that she was looking for. If she was going to look after the poor creature, she might as well put it to some use.
A week later, Gothi was able to use the bird for all her herb collecting. It was far better at it than the terrors, and she'd taken to leaving them at home when she went out, since they only ever caused her problems.
The rest of the village liked her new pet, too. It turned out that, whatever species the bird belonged to, it had an amazing ability to copy sounds. Not like the parrot, which had led to trouble, but people whistling and humming. It had a beautiful tune, which even the 'battle-hardened' (they liked to think themselves as such, but Gothi knew otherwise) Vikings could appreciate.
Gothi was seeing less and less of her dragons, now that she had the bird. She still made sure to see them in the morning and at night, but they tended to follow her around less. In fact, they tended to avoid her altogether whenever she was doing anything with her bird.
When she got home that night, she arrived to the sight of a group of pouting dragons staring at her. She looked at them, tilting her head slightly - what is it?
The dragons nodded their heads towards the bird by her feet. She chuckled silently, looking between bird and dragons. They're jealous, she realised, and knew that it was for good reason.
Well, only one way to rectify that. Gothi held her arms out wide, and the terrors didn't hesitate to barrel into her for a group hug. The elder let out another silent laugh - it was a good thing that terrors had such a short attention span.