<span style="font-family: 'Book Antiqua'">Maia sat a bit distant but not too distant from the others that had gathered in groups of family and friends around the tables in the old restaurant. Of the four seats at the table where she sat, three were empty and she occupied the other. Her meal was half finished and she was down to finishing up a portion of bread. <br/>
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She watched as he approached and gave a casual wave for him to join her. "Pick a seat. You may have to bully yourself in," she said with a short, dry chuckle. <br/>
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"Feeling like an outsider yet?" She asked then popped a torn piece of bread into her mouth. She watched him for his response, taking in his expression, and cracking the smallest of side grins as she saw him wrestle with just how to answer that question.<br/>
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"They're good people, but they'll only let people in so close. Good thinking these days, don't you think?" She was still watching his face and reading his expression, trying to glean knowledge from mannerisms and body language.<br/>
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"So why north? Where did you start? What have you seen?"<br/>
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She was curious, but only in the most off-handed way. She didn't seem the type to have conversation for the sake of talking, so her questions did have a point.In addition to learning details about her new traveling companion, she was also interested in the state of things beyond her travel loop. Things in the northwest seemed to have settled into the rhythm of an old timey frontier story and she wondered what other places had settled like. She'd seen so many movies growing up about life after a world war or some other kind of cataclysm and she was morbidly curious if somewhere there was a Mad max and a Thunderdome, or a Red Dawn, or maybe even a War of the World scenario playing out somewhere.</span>