Week Seven Kessel Run Challenge: Write a story between 100 and 1,000 words from the perspective of a child. (For our purposes, a child is anyone 12 years old or younger – or whatever the developmental equivalent for your non-human characters happens to be.) A/N: Thanks to Viari for suggesting the premise of this week's story!

Meditation (Valeria Jade, Mara Jade Skywalker, 29 ABY)

"—and calm your mind," the voice continued, quiet and steady and boring.

If your mind was calm, did that mean you didn't think? How could you stop thinking? Even when you were asleep, your brain thought, that's what dreams were, right? So if you stopped thinking, then you'd be dead, and what was the point of being calm when you were dead—

A faint wave of amusement brushed past her in the Force, almost like a tickle, and there was a soft tap on her knee. Valeria Jade opened her eyes to see Aunt Mara looking at her, one eyebrow lifted. "Someone's mind is very busy," she said.

Valeria squirmed a little. "I'm sorry, Aunt Mara."

"I've been called a lot of things," Aunt Mara continued, almost like she was talking to herself, "but it took children to decide that I was boring."

"Not you, Aunt Mara," Valeria said quickly. "Just…this. Couldn't we practice lifting pebbles instead? Or talking in our heads?"

"Or anything but meditation, in short."

Valeria's cheeks were warm, and she knew she was blushing. "It's just—"

"Boring," Aunt Mara finished for her, then smiled. "Does it help to know that we all thought so at first?"

That was a new thought. "Even you?"

"Especially me," Aunt Mara said. "Ask Uncle Luke sometime what an annoying student I used to be."

Another new thought popped into her mind, one that made her cringe. "Am I an annoying student?"

Aunt Mara's sense in the Force, always warm and strong, turned softer at that, like ice cream just starting to melt in the sunshine. "Of course you're not, sweetheart. That wasn't what I meant at all." She uncrossed her legs and stood, holding a hand out. "Come on."

Valeria took her hand and let Aunt Mara pull her to her feet. "Where are we going?"

"Not far." True to her word, they only walked to the edge of the clearing they'd been in the middle of. Aunt Mara stopped beside a large tree and sat down again, leaning her back against the trunk and stretching her legs out in front of her, then patted the grass next to her. Valeria sat down too, and Aunt Mara put an arm around her shoulders and held her close, leaning her head down against Valeria's own. "What do you see?" she asked softly.

"Grass. Trees."

"Good," Aunt Mara murmured. "What else?"

Valeria looked around, remembering how her mother always said that to paint the world, a person had to really see it first, and tried to see the way an artist would, or a Jedi. "There are tiny white flowers in the grass. And a clump of bushes over there. And the mountains against the horizon." She looked up. "The sky, and clouds." She looked down the length of her legs, stretched out alongside Aunt Mara's. "Our feet."

"Very good. Close your eyes. What do you hear?"

Obediently, Valeria closed her eyes and listened to the sounds around her. "Birds singing. Cada bugs buzzing in the trees. The wind in the leaves."

"And what do you feel?"

"My breath," Valeria said as her chest rose and fell. Her mind didn't feel so busy anymore, her attention instead on the steady rhythm of her breathing and the warm strength of Aunt Mara close beside her. "Your breath. The sunshine on my skin. The ground underneath us."

"And what else?"

"The Force," Valeria said. It was so obvious now, no words or thoughts or questions holding it back as she just let herself feel. It swirled around her, washed gently back and forth between her and Aunt Mara, splashed upward along the length of the tree behind them and down deep in the ground, vibrating against the life it found there, worms and bugs and even smaller things she didn't know the names for yet. It drifted through the grass around them and everywhere it touched something different, a tiny nibble-mouse or the scuttler climbing a tree across the clearing or even a rock, it shone against her senses like stars in the night sky, some bright, some dim, but each distinct and important. A nest of ants maybe five meters away was a cluster of sparks; the flock of birds that flew overhead left a glowing wake in the ocean that was the sky and the world and the galaxy and the Force and her and Aunt Mara and each blade of grass…

She raised her face to the sky even though her eyes were still closed, watching the motions of the Force without sight or hearing or touch, they were slow and dull compared to the way something inside her could touch the Force and she was more than just her, she was part of all of it and everything and everyone and somehow it was both forever and only a moment before she drifted back into herself and her eyes slowly opened to see the familiar landscape of her aunt and uncle's Jedi academy.

"And that's meditation," Aunt Mara almost whispered, still holding her close.

"Wow," Valeria breathed.

Aunt Mara laughed softly. "Wow, indeed. Uncle Luke would say you've taken your first step into a larger world."

"Why haven't we done this before?" Valeria demanded, and Aunt Mara laughed again.

"Because it's too boring for small children," she said, her voice gently teasing. "But now that you're all of ten, you're old enough to learn to look past the surface. Can you see how connecting to the Force more deeply will help you with your other skills?"

Valeria nodded, thinking hard. "Aunt Mara, what do Jedi do?"

Aunt Mara squeezed her tight. "We listen to the Force, and we use what it tells us to help and defend others. Beyond that—well. We're still figuring it out ourselves. The more you learn, the more you can help us decide that."

That didn't sound boring. It sounded important, and maybe even exciting. Valeria smiled up at Aunt Mara. "What do we learn next?"