Very, very long pause.

Then: "In the sense of - unassociated with the Senator, Naboo's royal houses, or the Sith."

"There's a lot of fucked up places in the galaxy. Some - are more fucked up than others."

"There's lots of other kinds of places."

"Yeah."

"I'm not - currently willing - to give up my position as a Senator, or my networks as a Sith and I don't want... People looking for where I went."

"We can try to find some quiet planet somewhere off the trade routes."

"Doesn't solve - keeping my influence."

"You have enough handmaidens to swap out, don't you?"

"...I suppose. I'd need to make actual appearances ever, but - my more experienced girls already run things without me a lot..."

"You probably have a year or two before it's really relevant."

"I want to spend more time with her even now, too - and that can get... Awkward, on Coruscant. I'm watched more."

Shrug. "I dunno what the best solution is, here."

"I might be able to - mostly work remotely. Only go in as needed, get a fast ship and coordinate well, use my handmaidens to stall if needed. People know I use them, and in Naboo's laws they're interchangeable with me as Senator so they have the exact same rights to cast votes and negotiate. And... Starkiller already handles nearly all of my in person appearances with our underground networks."

"Wouldn't want to go too far off the beaten track, then."

"We can find somewhere far enough, I bet."

"Somewhere in the wide galaxy."

"Are you able to do the initial sorting?"

"Yeah, I can take a look."

Tiny smile. "I'll handle coordinating the cleanup, then."

"Sounds like a fair division of labor."

"Play to our strengths."

To work, then?

To work.

Elesse spends the next few weeks sorting through potential places to live, sorting by distance from Coruscant and local political history and amount of trade and cost of living and density and general feel of the population so as to have enough options to present.

It's a good activity to do with Anakin, even if her active contributions are not precisely helpful. Introduce her to different species of people and plants and animals, different ways biomes can look and different ways seasonal patterns can play out and different ways houses and communities can be constructed. (And Elesse feels Anakin should have some input on where she lives, since they're choosing anyway. They can revisit the topic once she's older.)

Her opinions mostly seem to be 'is frustrated she cannot grab objects in pictures or holos, keeps trying anyways.' Also a common opinion of 'is Elesse's hair edible? Experts disagree.' She's maybe possibly noticing some words that aren't names of people she knows? Hard to tell. Though she'll gamely attempt to repeat sounds, especially ones Elesse produces, or calls of assorted animals if Elesse plays any audio. She really likes bird noises and cat noises. Those are extremely excellent noises. Especially from that one planet with '''domesticated''' great cats and apparently some kind of on-lists-of-most-this diversity of songbirds. She can RAWR. And SING. (This mostly sounds like screaming.)

Well. It's a start.

Elesse will take her list of final candidates to Lyli to make her selection.

"These are all fairly good..." she says. "Though we might stand out too much here," shuffle, "And the Black Sun has some contacts here - it's a minor smuggler's haven," shuffle. This gets them down to three. Then, more quietly, about one with large ice caps and a temperate equator: "This one - I don't like winters." Shuffle.

Down to two - one of them the birds-and-cats world Anakin liked the animals from, a world covered in dense forests and numerous fragmentary inland seas but little ocean. The other is an archipelago world with the land masses concentrated in the rain bands, and would be a vacation magnet if it there were more than a few islands where it didn't lightly rain nearly every day, and if it wasn't well off the popular and safe hyperspace lanes. "Opinion between these?"