Food, then!

And the verdict... Very good.

Excellent! 

"Gonna be a chef when you grow up?"

"Nah. I'm just gonna cook for people I like."

"As long as I'm one of those people."

"Of course you are, sis." Shoulder bump!

"Yesssss."

Giggle!

"So more ruins study today?"

"Trap study!"

"Ahhh, trap study. Right."

"What did you and mama think up?" she asks Elesse.

Lots of things, over the course of their discussions. Enough to keep Anakin entertained for a day, certainly.

More, even, since she wants to explore the ruins and generally run around in between. 

Good, that'll give some slack for further study.

And exploring! 

Much of which Anakin wants to do unsupervised, as their time at the site stretches out and they learn more about it. She's very taken with all the little nooks and crannies, especially in the lower levels, and feels she's old enough to not be 'babied.'

Things seem to be safe enough. Anakin should come get Elesse or mama if she runs across anything that feels weird, but otherwise she can go it alone.

Okay!!! She'll be good! Promise!

All right. Have fun, then.

Thanks!!!

And: exploring! 

Her fascination with the lower levels continues, especially the oddly short lowest levels. The floors here are dirt, which feels weird, and digging in them turns up a lot of little things all the time. Tiny metal circles with designs on them, glass beads, a cup once... So, digging occupies a lot of Anakin's explorations. Careful digging, that won't damage things, using the Force more often than not.

(Anakin's not entirely sure why Elesse doesn't just float the dirt away when digging and then float out everything that isn't dirt from the cloud. Probably there's some wise adult reason. Anakin prefers using the Force, though.)

And on one of those expeditions...

She lifts up a little column of dirt, and before she can separate it, spots an open space under.

She wastes no time in clearing a hole just big enough for her before dropping down into more tunnels.

This is the COOLEST DISCOVERY and Anakin is an INTREPID EXPLORER and also the carvings on the walls (once she gets to the level under the one she dropped into, removing a little hatch to get through) are in so much better condition, the writing even mostly intact. And some of it seems to be labels!

She squints at those, notes where she is while she walks, and goes exploring more.

She watches for traps of course, but doesn't actually find any before she reaches a large circular room with a few decayed chairs and a central raised platform with a table-altar-console-thingy along the side opposite her, and a big glassy screen-window-mural-thingy on the wall on the other side of it, and more table-altar-console-thingies along the outside (Anakin is avoiding making assumptions about the ancient use of raised surfaces, she's pretty sure that's proper archaeological technique).

The raised platform in the middle is, of course, the absolute coolest part, and Anakin skips up to it to examine the table-altar-console-thingy closer. There's a lot of very geometric patterns on it, and some raised bits and then sunken bits that look like you could put something in them...

A quick look around reveals some objects-of-indeterminate-purpose in the (carefully handled) remnants of the chair, one of which is a cool purple crystal whose shape suggests maybe, just maybe, it would fit in one of those slots...

Anakin floats it out from her cloud of chair bits, gently resettles the chair bits exactly where she found them, and grabs it with her hands before her impulse control can reassert itself to tell her not to touch the artifacts. (She has gloves on, though, and Elesse picks up artifacts with her hands. What's the worst that could happen?)

- And then the world goes distinctly weird.

There's an Elesse, but not her Elesse. This one is older, more worn by the passage of years.

"...Anakin?"

What???

She looks down in puzzlement at the crystal in her hands, then at the weird hazy blending of the room she'd been in and - wherever old Elesse is - and then back to old Elesse.

...Who's also dressed weirdly. Like pictures of the Jedi Order Elesse showed her that one time, during a lesson on different groups of Force users.

Elesse isn't part of the Order. Anakin knows that. And the Order doesn't have normal families, and Elesse left the Order so she could raise Anakin and work with mama, so - 

" - You're not Elesse," she says nearly immediately, posture and tone moving from surprised to suspicious. 

"I am not your Elesse, I think. Are you having a vision, young one?"

"Elesse wouldn't call me that," she says, stubbornly. But - "Maybe? This is only kinda where I was. And Elesse's younger and looks different and is still upstairs with sis." Anakin is very stubbornly assuming they're talking. Definitely. Nothing else. "And mama and Elesse are still in my head. So I don't think I teleported."