"Hello," Annie replies. It's not the first thing she does. The first thing is she startles, a tiny tiny tiny bit, as the woman's greeting pulls her from where her thoughts had taken her.

Then she smiles, shy but friendly enough, and lowers her staff as if she'd never been twirling it.

"I'm not, uh. In your way or anythin'?"

She has an odd accent, does Annie Cresta. Mostly Mexican, but some Texan there, too, all marinated over hundreds and hundreds of years.