A lot of the work listening to the local populace falls on Theodoric, as one of the few who can speak the local language. Damianos does make an effort to get involved as well, but his knowledge of Turkic is still fairly rudimentary.
Ipek is more than happy to come along (in practice, Viola thinks keeping her away would have been difficult), and her brother will accompany her.
Calliope will also come, along with her shield grog. She does note, however, that she sees her role as being that of a recorder - the actors in the story are Viola and the children. She tries to make this point to Ipek as well...
OOC: I think this is the latest version of the story we're going from, but shout if you disagree: Chapter 3 (Autumn 1228): Singing the Song