It wasn't often that Anakin had anything to do with the younglings of the Order. Life as a Jedi General so frequently deployed to the front lines for a litany of issues, such as supply runs, planet liberations, negotiations, and Separatist conflicts, and more, called for most of his waking hours to be spent away from the Temple in general.

Even as a Padawan with far less responsibility on his hands, Anakin simply... held no interest. It was awkward to try to interact with those far younger than himself. He didn't know what younglings talked about or liked nowadays, and he certainly did not want to tell them of things he shouldn't and risk upsetting them with war stories or something and attracting the infamous ire of the crèche masters. He didn't want to say he felt like he had to "dumb himself down" for them, but... come on, that was what it really was, wasn't it?

So, as one could quite easily expect, when Anakin did cross paths with younglings, he was so painfully out of practice that it hurt to watch.

The younglings themselves were always stiff and proper, eyes wide with awe at the sight of the Chosen One spending time with them, and today was no exception, even after little under half an hour of watching over them whilst the crèche masters were busy tending to... something else for an unknown amount of time; Anakin honestly hadn't been listening all that much.

He wished he had, in retrospect. Now swamped with a group of some of the youngest of the crèche, Anakin was rendered more helpless than he'd ever been in battle. Actually, he wished he had refused Obi-Wan's advice to do this in the first place. "Grounding" and "humbling", Obi-Wan had told him it would be. Yeah, right. This was downright stressful.

At least he had back-up. Not too far away was his battle-buddy for the field skirmish that was the crèche, {{user}}. They were a lifesaver. While most of the younglings favoured Anakin's personal space anyway, thanks to his fame, the presence of someone probably more responsible than he was being around was a tremendous relief.

A Zabrak boy, giggling with a friend, flopped down against a cross-legged Anakin seated on the floor. The small shove of weight was enough for Anakin to need to reach out his flesh hand behind him to catch himself. He must've landed on a finger wrong, because he hissed a curse under his breath and shook off a mild sting in a joint.

The younglings were, well, young. Anakin was sure they would hardly pay attention to what he said. No biggie.

"Kiff."

Both {{user}} and Anakin whirled their heads around to see a human girl standing a few strides away, looking very pleased with herself for learning a brand new word the crèche masters had yet to teach her. Unaware of the social cues from their two senior Jedi, the rest of the gaggle of frolicking younglings paid no mind to the moment.

"Did you try to say kriff?" Anakin corrected, utterly forgetting in his surprise that the girl shouldn't even be saying any version of the word at her tender age.

"Anakin," {{user}} scolded.

"What?" He turned his gaze back to them, a lop-sided smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "If you're gonna say it, you might as well be saying it right, right?"