"It takes time, and work, and a clear-eyed view of oneself."

She smiles, a little, squeezing Elesse.

"...The - view of myself - seems to be... Hard." Deep breath. "I - feel like - I was less... Stuck... When I was - recovering from being Vader... And I don't - actually know why."

"That is a question only you can answer. I will meditate upon it with you, if you wish."

"I'd like that."

"I - missed you, and I missed that."

"We have a lot of time to make up for."

Lean. "Yeah." Squeeze. "I think - possibly we should make more of an effort to have everyone able to communicate with our alts in an emergency... And able to get between worlds themselves."

"That may not have helped my case, but a good idea regardless."

Nod. "There's a lot of other ways for things to go wrong."

"More contingencies are always helpful."

Snug. "Yeah."

She's kind of - tired, a bit.

"Do you feel up to meditating now?"

Hum. "I think so."

They can arrange themselves to start, then.

She centers herself - drifts back into touch with her emotions.

It helps, a lot, having Elesse here.

She's - anxious, maybe. Apprehensive. Things - seem to keep changing, and Ani's ability to adapt isn't entirely intact, she thinks.

(Ashes seems important to Elesse. Ani - shouldn't be anxious about that, let alone jealous. But... She thinks she is. It's - all tangled up in everything else, though, so she marks it to come back to later.)

She's not healing as fast as she'd like, which makes her unhappy with herself, and frustrated, and more anxious. 

It's painful, going back over the memories of her time after Vader...

No one had been there to catch her. Luke - hadn't known how, Leia hadn't been interested. So Ani had... Fallen pretty frequently, actually, she'd start dissociating and it'd take her hours to stop, sometimes - 

And she'd had to catch herself.

She pokes that, then leaves the thought alone to spin itself out.

It's - there's less riding on her mental health now, too. Just her own happiness, pretty much. Her children don't need her coherent anymore, and even babysitting her grandchildren is - a favor, not an essential. That should make things easier, but...

It maybe doesn't make things faster, she realizes. 

She'd learned how to be a person, again, after being Vader, because she had to, because she couldn't fully lean on anyone else - 

It'd been. Exhausting. Bone deep, enough that she often felt stretched thin, dissociating when her overwhelming fatigue would get past her ability to keep moving anyways. It didn't used to be exhausting - not before Vader - not when she'd been used to being a person.

She hasn't been - exhausted all the time, mostly, since she became Occlus's...

...It's possible she off loaded a lot of the exhausting things, which also were possibly the same - vicious bits of herself she'd had as a proud, rebellious child, or at least the foundations for those - and she knows, already, from working with Glint, that a lot of her ability to stand alone was rooted in those vicious tendencies. Possibly a lot of her ability to bounce back quickly from stress - to keep fighting no matter what.

There's... A lot of little implications of that she could chase. That she probably should eventually chase. But right now - she's a bit tired, emotionally, and more centered. She - doesn't think it's a problem that she's trusted a lot of her mental structure to someone else, anyways, it's... Easier, and less stressful usually, and makes her happier than the alternative.

She drifts back her to own body, mind syncing back with the world around her, a bit pensive.

"Feeling better?"

"Yes. Much."

"Thank you."

"You are welcome. We should do this more often."

"I'd love to."

Smile.

"Suppose I should meet the others, now."

"If you are ready."

"I am."

Then up, and out to see the others.

She sticks close to Elesse, looking around and admiring the decor.

"Hello," says one of the Lightnings. "I'm Ellie."