"I'm increasingly glad you all bullied me into working remotely," she teases. "I'd hate to have missed this."

"Shame not to take advantage of your handmaidens, since you have them."

Soft smile.

"It was hard to realize - to accept - back then exactly how much of my strength rested in other people."

"You've grown as a person."

"A lot of that going around."

"I guess so."

"You've grown too, you know."

"Mm. Probably not exactly in the way the Order would like. But maybe that's for the best."

"As I said."

Pff. "Fair enough."

"Growing past what we were taught."

"With effort."

"It's a long, dark road out."

"But we're not alone."

"No. We aren't."

Smile.

And of course, there's other things to talk about than just Anakin - such as Elesse and Palpatine's own studies and investigations...

(Elesse's grown intellectually, too, Palpatine's noticed. She had a sharp wit as a preteen. She's a very serious challenge, now.)

Elesse has been charting her own path in the field of Force studies. She's getting closer to perfecting something that might be called light side sorcery, based on her Jedi teachings and some of Palpatine's esoteric texts.

Speaking of... Some of Palpatine's own investigations have uncovered a few avenues that might be of interest to her there.

She's always willing to accept notes.

There's a few texts, too, and some hints of ruins to explore - "I can point Salacis towards investigating those... Though some might be safe to take Anakin on a field trip for."

"I think I'd rather Salacis clear them at least, before taking Anakin."

"My general intent - she still doesn't always have the patience for the more meticulous sides of archaeology..."

Nod. "I'm not sure Anakin will either. Might depend some on the context."

"She's getting better at focusing for long stretches, and I think she'll do okay if she's helping you in bursts, or doing a couple different things, or if you have other things to distract her with. I'd suspect she'd get lonely before she got very bored..."