"Alright."

She settles in to meditate.

Reaching for the battle meditation is - harder, when she's not being pressed. And it's hard not to reach for Elesse directly via their bond, but...

Anakin's done this once already. She knows what it feels like...

...What if she goes indirectly?

There's no one around them, but there could be - if Anakin floats into the Force first, then loops to connect to Elesse -

She's everyone and everything, she is the ship the void the stars they're passing the Force and the Force is everything and the Force is Elesse, and of course Elesse's right there, Elesse always is -

Her Force presence is warm and comforting as always, but beyond their bond Anakin can feel another side, the way her mind is always working, considering contingencies for Dooku, the clones, Anakin's training...

It's almost reflexive to offer her own thoughts on Elesse's considerations, sort of - bouncing them, giving Elesse all of Anakin's impressions and information and vaguely observed hints from the Force as easily if they were Elesse's own memories - mostly still clearly Anakin's, and not pressed forward, simply - there.

(She's less solely herself, right now, or perhaps less trapped inside her own skull, so she notices she's not getting enthralled with Elesse's thoughts and that she usually would be, but manages to acknowledge that as irrelevant to her meditation.)

She can see the way Elesse responds to the new information, the new currents and flows adapting easily to the additional perspective.

With the clones, it felt like she was doing some smoothing, but that doesn't seem necessary with Elesse.

(She gets a bit distracted over how nice this feels - Elesse's mind is wonderful - lets that push her a bit more into the floating mindset...)

Though without a concrete task it's - easy to get muddled, to be unsure what she's working on, to just float and think at Elesse - to keep getting distracted, really.

Elesse brings it to a halt after a while.

"I think that's enough for now."

"Mmmkay." She curls back into her own head, blinking.

"How do you feel?"

"Okay. That was really nice. A bit - kind of like I just woke up and don't want to get out of bed."

"Comfortable," she says.

"Yeah. Nice and cozy."

"That's good." She hums thoughtfully. "Your presence was not intrusive. The information was... smooth."

"Good. It - did feel a lot different than it did the first time? Less focused, and... I think I was sharing more information overall, it was less blendy, and I wasn't giving any - nudges? The first time... It felt like a mix of moving myself, just when there was a lot of myself spread around, and telling the girls where they'd do best?" She hums. "I might've felt like I was moving myself because of the - blending? I don't think I was controlling anyone... But us making decisions based on our information felt like - some bigger me making decisions?"

"That may be a function of the number of people involved, or that there were so many very similar minds."

"Also I wasn't really being - careful, and I think the blending increased over time and helped us fight?"

Elesse nods.

"I would like you to practice the mindfulness exercises during your meditations, with a focus on the distinction between the Living Force and the Unifying Force. Understand the division between self and other, find the line on an instinctual level so that you cross it for your purposes and only when it serves you."

"Alright - that makes sense, with what I was thinking... It'll help me define my core, too, so I can always come back."

"That is important."

She laughs, a bit. "It'd be a shame if I forgot who I was."

"And after all the work I've put into building you up."

She ducks her head, smiling, a warm glow in her chest. (Elesse's so pretty. And also great in a lot of other ways. But salient to Anakin's teenage brain right now is 'pretty.')

"I'll try not to make more work for you rebuilding me, then," she says, teasingly.

"Thank you, Padawan." She checks the chrono. "Not much longer to Corellia."

"Alright." She hums, mulling over what they've talked about.

Corellia's traffic control, when they get there, is reasonably efficient for such a busy planet, and they can dock on the surface in short order. The ship is left in the care of a contact who will see it returned to the Temple. Elesse and Anakin take public transport in the direction of the Jedi Enclave, a relic of a time when Corellians were more independently minded, even as Jedi, these days maintained as a haven for those who don't want to leave the Core Worlds but need a quieter place than Coruscant. Once Elesse determines no one is following them directly, they double back to the spaceport and buy tickets on a passenger liner to the Mid Rim whose stops include Ord Mantell. The accommodations are slightly cramped, but they still get a cabin to themselves.

Anakin keeps working on meditating, and defining herself, and reaching out in the Force then finding herself again. There's not a ton else to do.