She has some practice with this sort of question; she nods, not too quickly, but not with a long enough pause to seem like she's hesitating, either.

"I hope they're okay. The first week or so is always the hardest."

The woman has probably surmised that her 'parents' joined the caravan at its last stop, due to the lack-of-having-seen-her previously.

"But no matter what happens, you'll be safe here. You know that, right?"

That's a little odd. The confusion shows on her face, but she nods anyway, agreeably enough.

"Oh. Um. Nevermind then."

Emi gets that look that adults get sometimes when they think they might be tripping over another adult's Parenting Choices.

"Well I hope you, and whoever you're traveling with, have a pleasant journey to wherever you're headed to."

She glances back at the animals.

"If they're okay with it, you can come back and watch me any night I'm out here alone with these critters. But not on the nights I'm busy with Kosh. Understand?"

Kosh (or, more often, Kosh-nak) is what people call the big strong orc who leads the caravan. Emi sounds like she takes her bi-weekly guard duty with Kosh very seriously.

She lights up at the offer, but puts on her serious face and nods at the clarification.

"Well, it's about time I got to bed. Do you think you can find your way back to your family's tent on your own..?"

"Mmhmm," she nods.

Over the next week, Emi spends pretty much every one of her free nights out at the forest's edge handling animals.

It makes a difference, having an audience. A safe audience. The girl can tell, perhaps, that she's making Emi happy with her continued presence.

On the rare occasions when they run into each other during daylight hours, Emi winks conspiratorially at her. Like they're in on a big secret.

(Neither Emi's heritage nor her limited magic nor her animal friends are secrets per se, but she isn't particularly chatty with most of the short-term nomads so these things aren't exactly talk of the caravan either)

She can tell, and it makes her happy, too. It's nice to have a friend, even temporarily; that's not a luxury she's had often. She picks up some of Emi's animal training tricks, too - mostly just how to avoid scaring them, but by the end of the week she can tempt a squirrel or fox to take a bit of food from her hand.

That's splendid!

Emi starts thinking about other things she could teach her little tag-along.

"Do you play any musical instruments? My hometown has a famous bard college. I never got the hang of bardic casting, but I sing and play the flute pretty well."

She shakes her head, but looks interested.

Emi will teach, then!

She has her doubts about whether her companion-of-few-words will take well to singing, but since she doesn't have a flute on her she'll start there.

The songs aren't familiar. Old melodies from distant lands that most people have either forgotten or never knew about in the first place.

They're pretty, though.

She takes to it surprisingly well; for all that she never comes up with more than one word at a time on her own, she can repeat a phrase she's just heard with no trouble at all.

"That's very good!"

Emi takes her through three different songs about four times each before the night's done, with a couple breaks throughout to pass around a waterskin and look at the stars.

"You have a very promising voice. You might want to think about applying to a bard college yourself, when you're older?"

Might be interesting.

Might be something Emi'd want to ask her parents about, though.

She shrugs.

"No rush. Lots of time to explore your interests. You're, what, eight years old? Big life ahead of you."

The caravan leaves the forests and enters a jagged arid landscape.

Previously, the nomads had been able to forage for nuts and berries to supplement their food stores. Now, the only thing they've got besides dry rations is meat from the occasional monstrous animals that attack the caravan's flanks (Kosh stops these beasts cold every time; even after three such attacks, nobody in the wagon line seems to have gotten a scratch from them).

Emi continues the instruction of her musical protegee most nights. She gets hold of a flute not long after they enter the drylands and--after demonstrating its use--passes it along to the girl as well.

She takes to the flute just as quickly, and Emi will occasionally hear her practicing in the afternoon while the caravan travels. She's got quite a cozy little nest, now: she managed to make off with a bit of canvas, one evening, and a night's exploration found her a wagon she could tie it up under; she likes how it sways her to sleep in the morning when the caravan starts moving, and it gives her a safe place to leave the flute and the small collection of interesting stones she's been accumulating when the caravan stops for the evening and she goes to help haul water and gather firewood.

"So, you're Emi's new friend."

During one such evening, the orc approaches her while she's out gathering firewood.

"I've been smelling a new scent on her recently. Was curious who."

He's... big. But seeming intimidated when people don't want you to be tends to go worse than not, so she just grins and nods.

"Well. I hope you decide to stick around. She gets real lonely."

Interestingly, the orc makes no reference to the girl's hypothetical parents in this statement.

Well, sometimes people don't.

She makes a noncommittal sound, in response - she could stay; she hasn't decided one way or the other yet. It is pretty nice here.

"Your call. Stay or go, the door here's always open."

Koshnak uproots a nearby tree and slings it over his shoulder.

"Wherever your path takes you, be strong and seize your dreams."

And with that, he strolls off.

Y'know, he's pretty cool.

It's much later, over dinner, that she puts together the comment about smelling her on Emi and the lack of comment about her parents. It puts her heart in her throat, for a moment - someone tried to return her to them, once, back when she was first out on her own, and she has no desire to repeat the experience - but... he didn't. He said she could stay. So. That's good. (Maybe she should stay, if she's really properly welcome here. It's certainly a point in favor, at least.)