Makes for an interesting challenge.

And an exciting view for Elesse's student.

She might even learn something, if she pays the proper amount of attention and recalls their talks on feeling the flow of the Force.

She's paying a lot of attention - and, yes, including to the Force; she doesn't get to see Elesse fight other people, especially other Masters, very often at all. 

It's a nice workout.

And a fight Elesse wins in the end.

"A good match, Master Ushel."

"A good match, Master Vendar."

"I'm going to need to step up my training, it seems."

"Perhaps you'll get me next time. Let me know when you feel ready."

"I will."

"Shall we show the padawans how to do a collaborative debrief?"

"Sure."

Anakin will very politely hold back the gushing about how well Elesse fights until after the debrief, then. 

That would be appreciated. She can learn some things from Kasu too, if she cares to.

She does! (Just, Elesse's cooler. But 'gave Elesse a serious challenge' is pretty cool, too.)

Fair enough.

The next few years pass quickly to Anakin's mind. They start taking missions outside the temple after she finally settles on a lightsaber design (beautiful and intricate, with little purple-iridescence panels peeking out from a silver filigree main handle, and smooth, raised ridges twisting around the handle to help her grip; it's gorgeous and extremely nontraditional and Anakin adores it). She takes to those well, though she has rough patches with learning to behave professionally and withhold her opinion for an appropriate moment. She adjusts, though, and she learns, and she keeps working at every skill she's bad at.

Her friendship with Djedzu and Joul continues and deepens, and she adds one of the Healer apprentices - Kalra Na-Kizu - to their little group about a year and a half into her own apprenticeship. She has other friends and friendly acquaintances, too, but mostly more shallowly. Sparring partners, club members, the librarian, a few of the initiates, the creche masters and other padawans and knights who volunteer there... And she's kept some of her friendships from before the Temple, and sometimes stays in contact with someone she met on a mission - but those relationships drift and grow more distant when she isn't seeing them quite as often. But it's her three best friends that she keeps up with most strictly, that she confides in. (Kalra and Djedzu tease her relentlessly about her crush on Elesse; Kalra sometimes provides actually good relationship advice, too, but Djedzu mostly just gets Anakin tackling zem. Her relationship with Joul is calmer and quieter, and she confides more of her actual pain to him.) (She befriends some of Elesse's friends too, of course - Ushel Kasu is the easiest of those, since she sees her pretty often through Joul and Djedzu, and since she gets along pretty decently with her. She keeps up with her mom at least some - befriends Mace Windu, who'd pretty quickly given up on not being Shmi's Jedi Master. She likes him. Probably her second favorite Jedi Master, after Elesse.)

Anakin's advancing quickly, too, in everything she turns her mind to. There's a lot of indications she'll be ready for Knighthood early, but... Not quite yet.

A few years yet, Elesse thinks. Not before she's eighteen.

In the meantime, there are more missions they can take, more complicated and more dangerous now that Anakin has experience and Elesse feels willing to push. There are no shortage of those in fact, as there sometimes are. The galaxy seems to be heading for a time of turmoil, a dozen upheavals on a dozen worlds at any given moment. The Outer Rim is restive, the Core too absorbed in their own selves to pay more than token attention. The Jedi are attempting to bridge the gap, as they always do, but- They may lack the numbers. Recruitment has been dwindling, year over year. This is a concern for the Council, however, and not casually spoken of in the Temple halls. The Jedi Order will stand strong and trust in the Force.

Thanks to their time before Anakin officially joined, she and Elesse are considered one of the more knowledgeable pairs when it comes to the Outer Rim, and are among the first asked for complicated things. Such as this latest, an investigation into slave trafficking along the Perlemian Route, whispers of Black Sun and underground gladiatorial games and rogue Hutts.

It's the kind of mission Anakin cares about, too. She tries to avoid getting so invested she loses any awareness of the big picture, of course... But her preference for fixing things now instead of waiting and watching hasn't gone away, and she thrives in 'complicated mission to quickly improve many lives.' Nothing as intense as this might be so far, but they've picked up more than a few missions in its ballpark - resettlement efforts, investigations, extracting informants who needed a rescue, undercover work... This is going to be longer and harder, but - she's ready to stretch herself.

Speaking of...

"There's a lot here we'll have trouble getting openly or officially," she tells Elesse as they're reviewing the information packets. "Intelligence is pretty spotty..."

"Rumors and hearsay," she agrees. "The system, whatever it is, seems fairly closed."

"Hutts are annoying like that. And - with the Black Sun doing purges of informants, we might have trouble teasing out more information from afar. Everyone's spooked."

"We may need to go undercover for this one."

She nods, slowly.

"It'll be - probably a lot longer than our past stints with that..."

Elesse nods. "And whatever we choose to do will need to stand up to more scrutiny, in all likelihood."

Anakin hums, thinking.

Then: "...I still have the slave chip. We could - reprogram it pretty easy."