"I am definitely too tired for that."

"All right. Back to the Temple with you, then. I'll try to keep your statue to a reasonable size. Say, a hundred fifty meters."

She laughs. "As long as it's pretty."

"Aurodium-plated."

"I said pretty, not tacky."

"Politics is all about compromise."

"And charisma! Which I have in spades."

Elesse laughs.

"Go take your charisma to see if our rooms are still intact."

"Okay."

"I'll meet you there?"

"Yes. Once the Chancellor has had his fill of cameras."

She nods.

"I'll let you go then."

And off to face the politicians. Worse than a battlefield any day.

Anakin - doesn't actually go straight back to their rooms. She mostly stops to make sure the girls are all accounted for and okay, that there's nothing they critically need and the ones who do need critical care are getting it - 

She doesn't want them to fall through the cracks. (Slaves always do.)

But they look out for each other, too, and soon enough she's satisfied they'll be as okay as they can in the short term, and heads into the Temple to find her and Elesse's rooms and just... 

Collapse.

(She dreams every death on that battlefield.)

Elesse enters softly, a few hours later.

She stirs anyways.

"'lesse?"

"I'm here." She sits next to her Padawan.

She curls into her teacher a bit.

"Mmmm... Stuff okay?"

"More or less. The Chancellor does want to meet you at some point."

"And while the Senate was locked in, they voted in favor of creating a Republic military. They're asking the Jedi to lead it."

...That's not good.

She grumbles and curls into Elesse more.

"Are we gonna?"

"Given that we have recently come into possession of an army, it will be argued that we would be irresponsible not to."

She nods.

"Don't - want those girls to have to be soldiers. Don't want someone who doesn't care to lead them, either."

"They seem... enthusiastic about their intended job."

"They are." She's very confident of that. None of them shied away from her command, and she was far from the only one enjoying that battle. "Still should get citizenship and stuff. A - choice, technically, even if they don't take it."

"The Republic has, historically, not been good about clone rights. I will suggest we make this a condition of our acceptance."

"It should be. I'm fine fighting. Jedi shouldn't be - part of slavery, though."