Eshe opened her eyes and suppressed the urge to grin. Meditation was not normally a pleasant or productive activity, and no one knew it better than she did, but today was different. Today she felt like she had seen more, learned more, and, perhaps, actually gotten something accomplished.

Actually, that sort of thing was fairly common these days, what with the newest - and scariest- Padawan becoming her standing roommate when they were both on Dantooine. Which was a lot; both of their Masters were elderly and slightly (or, in the case of Master Kreia, very) antisocial, and so often stayed close to the Enclave, or, when the were given assignments, went to civilized, Core Worlds far away from anything more important or exciting than you run of the mill back-stabbing political intrigue. With great effort, Eshe suppressed a small twinge of jealousy. The boys didn't have this problem; Malak's master, Zez Kai-Ell, was a younger, more energetic Master, and often took his Padawan to the Outer Rim worlds, and Kavar was fully a Knight already, having adventures of his own, and, possibly, looking to take on a Padawan of his own. Rumor had it that Revan would have ended up as that student, had not Master Kreia shuffled out of whatever stack of holocrons she had barricaded herself in a decade ago and declared herself ready for another pupil; now he simply acted as he always did, instructing herself and Malak in fencing techniques whenever he was around. Between that and the Guardian stuff Revan was teaching her, Malak was going to be in for a big surprise when he finally returned from whatever reach of the galaxy he was wandering about now.

Speaking of surprises, Eshe thought, looking over the where her roommate was hunched over her datapad, she's been at it for way too long now. She needs one.

And with that, she used the Force to call the datapad into her hand. Revan wheeled around, glaring blearily at the older girl.

"What the hell, Eshe?"

"The Theory of Moral Relativity?" Eshe asked incredulously. "Rev, are you trying to skip Knight as well as apprentice? Why the hell are you reading something like this?"

"I'm not reading it," Revan muttered, using her own powers to snatch the pad out of Eshe's hands. "I'm writing it."

"Why the hell are you writing something like that then?"

"Because 'something like this' is all Master Kreia will talk to me about. I figure if I just show her what I already have figured out, and then we can skip all the long winded arguments we never get to finish anyway and get on with the more exciting stuff," the younger girl grumbled.

"So wait. This isn't even homework? You're doing this for fun? You're writing a 70,000 word essay, on moral relativity, for fun? Revan, what the hell?"

"Just because my idea of fun doesn't involve staring out into the night and moping around because Malak isn't here doesn't mean it still isn't fun," she snapped.

"Yeah. I can see you're just letting the good times roll," Eshe deadpanned. Revan didn't answer, but her scowl deepened.

"Look, Rev. You're thirteen. You've been a Jedi for about three months. You're probably going to beat me to Knight, at the rate you're going. Stop! Halt! Cease and desist! You're scaring the crap out of everyone! Take a night off and get some sleep, forcryinoutloud!"

The corners of Revan's mouth twitched. "I take you've been spending some time with Master Wenutu again?"

Eshe shrugged. "She and Master Nemo are old friends, we had lunch the other day."

There was a moment of silence before Eshe added "And don't think I didn't notice you changed the subject."

"Wouldn't dream of it, Sheesh," she replied.

"Would you stop calling me- hey! You're trying it again!" Eshe snatched the datapad from Revan's hands again.

"Listen, Revan, when I say you're scaring the crap out people, I mean 'you're scaring the crap out of people'. You're at the top of your class-"

"So are you-"

"But I've been here practically since I was born!" The older girl jumped up and began to pace. "You've been here for all of three months and sometimes I think you know more about the Force than the Masters do. You certainly have more control over it!"

Revan blinked, looking startled. "I'm not-"

"Don't try denying it, Rev. You might be the only one who really knows what you're capable of."

"I don't."

Eshe stopped in her tracks and wheeled around. "What do you mean you don't?"

"I don't know what I'm capable of. I don't know how powerful I am. I don't know where my limits are- or if I even have them. I just don't know."

"Banthashit," Eshe challenged.

"It's not," Revan insisted. "You know what happens when I meditate? I go to a beach- I'm not sure why I beach, because I've only ever seen them in pictures, but it's a beach nonetheless. And there's an ocean. Sometime's it's calm, other time's it's stormy, and sometimes I can see different patches, currents... as you can probably guess, that's the Force. The problem is, I can't tell if it's the Force in general, or just the extent of my ability to command it. I just don't know."

"Oh," Eshe said after a long moment. "So that's why you scare the crap out of everyone. I just thought it was how you could just keep going with no sleep and no food for days on end. You're like the fracking Energizer Gizka, you know that?"

"That's it?" Revan asked. "I pour out my heart and soul to you and you make jokes comparing me to a power cell?"

"No, it's you tell me what has the Council all in a tizzy about you and then I make jokes comparing you the mascot of a brand of power cells," Eshe corrected.

"You know what you remind me of," Revan said. "Munti Krinath. Talking to you is like acting in a skit from Munti Krinath."

"Munti Krinath, eh? I've always been a big fan of his," Eshe mused, and began to hum 'Lovely Nerf' under her breath. Revan stared at her, incredulity growing with every passing second.

"Eshe..."

"Rev, I've known you long enough to know that while you certainly have your down sides, stupidity isn't one of them. I take it you've told at least one of the Masters about your meditation issue?"

"Of course. I'm not a fool," Revan replied. Eshe rolled her eyes to the ceiling. 'Fool' was one of Kreia's favorite words, and it seemed like she was passing on her vocabulary to her pupil.

"I never said you were," she huffed. "And..."

"Master Vrook thought I was suffering from hubris, and that I'd fall to the darkside," Revan clarified.

"Yes, well that sounds like the old man to me. As much as it pains me to admit it, he might be a bit biased here. How about your own Master?"

"I'm pretty sure I'd get the same response," Revan answered.

"Well, try. And if that falls you can always borrow my Master. He's pretty good at being understanding and flexible. And if that fails, go to Master Wenutu. Or Master Kae. She has a soft spot for you a mile wide, you know. I think if Master Kriea hadn't snatched you up, she would have taken you on as her Padawan."

A dark shadow passed across Revan's face.

"Oh dear. There's that look again," Eshe intoned.

"What?"

"They look that comes whenever something from you're mysterious past comes up. You know, the one you refuse to talk about?"

"I don't refuse to talk about it!"

"Okay then, how'd you spend your thirteenth birthday?"

Dead silence.

"See? Mysterious past. Which you're way too young to have, by the way," Eshe concluded.

"And you're never going to find out about," Revan muttered.

"A-ha! A challenge! Now you have no chance of hiding your childhood secrets from me!" the Consular declared.

Revan rolled her eyes and grumbled something unintelligible.

"Okay that was Mando'a. I should probably know what you said, but have no idea,"

"I said 'You would have made a good Mandalorian'. And for someone who is, in fact, a Jedi, your language skills suck, you know?"

"We can't all be hyperpolyglots like you,"

"I'm not asking you to learn ten languages, just one."

"I already know one- Basic. Half the galaxy speaks it."

"And half the galaxy doesn't."

"Which is why you're teaching me Mando'a, among other things. By the way, thanks for those Force Jump lessons; I really surprised Niteroi in the dueling circle today. And you wouldn't believe how long I can stay in the air now."

"Oh, I have some idea," Revan answered, turning back to her datapad. Eshe snatched it out of her hand again.

"You know what you're problem is? You're not a kid. I'm not entirely sure you were a kid- you probably popped out of your Mom complete with lightsabers and sent the midwife spiraling away with a Force-push. So you know what? You're going to bed right this instant, so that you can wake up at the crack of dawn with me and hijack a brith."

"A... brith?"

"A brith."

"You want me to hijack a brith. And then do what exactly?"

"Fly it, of course."

"You can do that?"

"Sure; it's been a tradition among Padawans since right before the Exar Kun wars, when the first beast-rider Jedi was accepted into the Order. The legend goes he wooed his girlfriend by coaxing the entire brith flock to flying in formation, spelling out his lover's name,"

"Really?" Revan asked perking up.

"Yeah!" Eshe enthused, happy that something had finally caught Revan's interested that wasn't centered around the archives.

"You know, that sounds an awful lot like the Beast Control power Master Kreia was telling me about..." she continued, and Eshe rolled her eyes.

"Lighten up, Rev. Be a kid. Just for a minute, okay?"

Revan huffed, but after a minute, tentatively asked. "What does it feel like?"

Eshe smiled and began "Well, to begin with, you can hold on to anything- you have to sit cross-legged on it's back, and there no place to put you're hands. The wings move back and forth, and it feels a bit like being on a boat at first- the same forwards, up-and-down motion..."

"Jump up on the-"

"No! Dammit I'm sliding off again!"

"You're a Guardian, Rev, shouldn't that help you with techy little things like balance?"

"How the hell did you say this works again?"

"Damned if I know."

"But you just gave that whole detailed description"

"Which proved what? That I'd heard the story and am good at banthashitting?"

"Sheesh!"

"Don't view it as me lying to you; view it as a skill we have in common. And don't call me 'Sheesh'."

"Shut up! You're not helping!"

"Neither are you!"

"No, seriously, shut up. I have an idea..."

For years, Master Faida Wenutu had been in the habit of waking before the sun. There was something profoundly peaceful about the twilight hour before dawn, something about the pastels of the sunrise and the song of the birds that made her feel the currents of the Force more clearly than she, with her mediocre connection, could feel at any other time.

However, her Padawan, Srini Vos, had just entered the latter stages of puberty, and was physically incapable of appreciating the serenity the early hour could afford them. Normally, this wouldn't deter Faida from dragging her along in the least, but the girl was having an especially bad menstrual cycle this morning, so the older Kiffar had taken pity on her and let her sleep in.

"Master Wenutu!" came a voice from behind her on the path. Faida turned around; Nemo, jogged up behind her, puffing slightly at the exertion.

"Slow down, woman! I'm not young enough to keep up with your freakish endurance anymore!" he called. Faida slowed to crawl, and he caught up to her, wheezing.

"You're forty years old, Faida. Stop pretending otherwise," he admonished.

"Just because some of us are nearing their sixtieth doesn't mean the rest of us need to slow down, Master Nemo."

"Drop the 'Master', Faida, and tell me what you've done with my Padawan," he ordered.

"Me? With your Padawan? Nothing at all,"

"Oh? And what was it you were telling her yesterday that had her all caught up in giggles?"

"About the dashing beast-rider Jedi who used his talent with animals to spell out his lady love's name in the sky," Faida responded.

Nemo's eyes widened. "Faida, you didn't-"

"Relax; she has no idea I was actually talking about us. I didn't mention any names, and I made you a few decades younger, just in case," she assured him.

Nemo rolled his eyes. "I thought you liked older men?"

Faida laughed. "I thought you couldn't keep up with my freakish endurance anymore?"

"My lady, you wound me gravely," he joked.

"You're a healer; I'm sure you'll survive," she dismissed. They walked in companionable silence for a while, before Faida continued with "Srini's seventeenth birthday is next week."

"Eshe turned fifteen last month."

"The kids are all grown up," Faida commented. "Soon they'll face their trials, become knights, begin questioning things... and not have anyone to guide them to the right answers."

Nemo sighed. "You're talking about Eshe's bond with Malak. You're afraid they might pull a Bindo."

"Nemo! When did you start using that turn of phrase?" Faida laughed, and then, sobering. "I'm afraid they might already be planning it- or have done it already."

"'It'?" Nemo asked slyly.

"Yes, 'it'. That which we decided not to do, so that we could remain Jedi after the Exar Kun Wars," Faida clarified.

"I still can't agree with that point," Nemo scowled.

"And yet, here we are. Still Jedi- and still celibate," Faida pointed out.

"You're the one who insisted that whatever we chose, we chose it openly," Nemo reminded her gently.

"And there never really was a choice after that, was there?" Faida responded, looking up at the sky.

"No, I don't suppose there was," Nemo confirmed. He walked a few paces, before he realized that his companion had stopped.

"Faida?" he asked

"I think we're needed back at the Enclave," she said in strained voice.

Nemo frowned. "I'm not sensing anything amiss."

"Look up, genius."

Nemo did; a flock of brith passed lazily overhead, flying in formation so that, from below, they looked to be spelling out the words VROOK AND KREIA, encircled by a large heart. His Padawan's work, obviously.

"Holy Force," he breathed. "He'll murder her! He'll murder them!" he corrected himself, as the flock grew nearer and he could see not one, but two distinct figured riding on the lead brith.

"Forget Vrook; Kriea will make them wish he'd caught them first," Faida amended, "Vrook at least went through his rebellious stage with Jolee, he'll understand a little bit. And it's hard to take him very seriously when his face turns that shade of purple."

"Let's go," Nemo said, taking off.

He was, Faida noted with some small degree of amusement before she followed suit, running faster than he had in years.

Amazing thing, puberty. All those hormones really addled the brain. She was almost happy that she had menopause to look forward to.

Brith, in case you're wondering, are the flying manta ray things on Datooine.