WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Dragon Goes House-Hunting, Episode 5, “A Community of Homes”, now streaming on Funimation.
After five episodes of house-hunting, it’s exciting to see some actual character growth for Letty in Dragon Goes House-Hunting. While he's likable on his own, leaving home and learning to live by oneself should lead to some personal growth for anyone. And for Letty in Episode 5, it takes a cute baby bird to finally draw out his paternal instinct and the courage to protect those he cares about, even just for a moment.
In Episode 4, Letty protected an egg from the harsh wilderness, even giving up his cozy living space in a whale for it, which shows how much he cares. But after the baby bird hatches and imprints on Letty, the heavy responsibility of parenthood dawns on him. Dearia tells Letty the bird is a hræsvelgr, a magical eagle from Norse mythology that can summon blizzards. As a baby, it only eats snow so it’s actually fairly easy to raise. But Letty still fears that he will screw up, so he decides to find it a good foster home.
As always, Dearia has a solution and takes Letty to a housing community inside a gorge. It’s a community mostly catering to smaller creatures so it’s not suitable for Letty, but it's generally safe from Heroes and there are plenty of homes that could take care of a baby bird… or so they thought.
This housing community takes the opportunity to introduce many new fantasy creatures, and some of them are fascinating, like the Orthrus, or two-headed dog, from Greek mythology. They can’t find a mate because the two heads have different tastes, so they play house and act like each other’s mates, which is sad but kind of realistic. This is also when the baby bird shows off its eardrum-splitting cry, which is so loud that one of the Orthrus' heads passes out.
Letty and Dearia also meet an Empusa who keeps tons of caged pets, a manticore with many vicious and hungry cubs and a werepanther that loves to work out -- even the Korpokkurs that sought Letty’s help in Episode 3 offered to help. But Letty thinks they could all potentially harm the baby, and so he doesn't trust them to be good caretakers.
Dearia runs into an old client of his, a bugbear with two young cubs, and leaves to discuss business, leaving Letty to babysit the kids. A catoblepas, the mythical buffalo-like creature from Ethiopia, quietly approaches them and offers to take the babies away so he can sell them to the dwarves. Letty panics but knows that he must do something to protect the kids, so he gives his most intimidating look and even breathes a little fire; however he immediately burns his tongue with his own flames, which solves the mystery of why fire breathing isn't one of his skills.
Letty’s bravery buys enough time for Dearia to arrive and threaten the catoblepas with Letty’s famous title “Flame Dragon Lord,” which works surprisingly well. This experience makes Letty realize that he can be responsible and brave when he needs to, and it’s the exact type of confidence booster he needs to accept fatherhood.
He immediately turns into a doting dad and names the bird “Piyovelt Phelpia Pi Alpine Piyoderika” or Pip for short, a totally appropriate name for a magical baby bird, and now he needs to look for a family house where he can raise the new baby.
