A returning Echo

Chapter Three

Instead of eating in the mess hall tonight, you decided to cook some Dohbarian food for yourself. You settled on stemau and a side of ebruah. While you were stirring the pasta for your ebruah, you noticed your comm link start to go off.
"Y/n?" You heard as you picked it up.
"Hello Anakin," you said, walking back to your stove.
"Hey, where are you right now? You weren't there to greet me when I got back," he said sounding slightly offended.
"I can't always be there to welcome you home. Plus, shouldn't you be more concerned about seeing Padmé?"
"Yeah, I'm with her right now. I was actually calling for someone else," he said. You could hear a slight hint of mischief in his voice.
"I'm just in my quarters, why? Who wants to see me?"
"Okay, good," he responded, ignoring your question. "That's where I said you'd be. Well, just be prepared to have someone for dinner," he said quickly before ending the connection.
"Wait, Anakin! Ugh!" You said, slightly annoyed. You weren't prepared to feed someone else, you had only made enough food for yourself. But, of course, Anakin had to drop a surprise on you at the very last minute.
You jumped slightly when you heard a knock at your door.
"Come in!" You called from your kitchen, scrambling to get more food for the guest you didn't know you were having.
"Anakin only just told me I'd be having someone for dinner, so I wasn't exactly ready to feed you," you explained without turning around. "I really hate when he does that. He never prepares me for anything," you complained. "Especially if it's him coming to visit, he just shows up." You threw some more noodles in the water, hoping they wouldn't take too long to cook. You finally turned around to see who had entered your room. What you saw was what looked like Echo trying to hold in a fit of laughter.
"No worries, General Jinn," he said. You blushed, slightly embarrassed by your rambling and complaining, and turned back around to stir the noodles and hide your face. "And you don't have to worry about the food, I can eat later in the mess hall," Echo added.
"Absolutely not," you said quickly. "You are having this classic Dohbarian meal, I already added more pasta for you."
"You sure? It's really no problem, I can always-"
"Yes, I'm sure. Don't try and convince me to let you go."
"Alright," he said, smiling while putting his hands up defensively. "What exactly are you making, if I may ask?" He slowly made his way over to look at what you were cooking. He saw a pot of noodles on the stove, and on the counter was two chops of meat and the ingredients for seasoning next to them.
"Stemau and ebruah," you said, earning a questioning look from him.
"Ebruah? Really?" He asked.
"Hey! Pasta covered in cheese is ALWAYS a great option!" You laughed while pointing at him with the spoon, earning a chuckle from him.
"I can't argue with that," he agreed before asking, "what is stemau?"
"It's a specially seasoned and cooked chop of nerf meat."
"Nerf meat? I've only ever had it the simple way," he said.
"Well, this is definitely going to be better, then."
"As long as you don't poison me, I'm sure I'll like it," he joked.
"Poison you? Now why would I ever do that?" You taunted.
"Maybe you find my intrusion inconvenient and want to make sure it doesn't happen again?" He offered, shrugging his shoulders.
"Of course I don't!" You said, looking at him. "I like your company."
"You do?"
"Yeah! Why wouldn't I?"
"I dunno..." he said, sounding slightly unsure of himself, scratching the back of his neck and looking down nervously. "I guess I was just worried these past few days you were only being nice to me because you thought it was the right thing to do."
"Echo," you said, gently placing your hand on his cheek to make him look at you, "like I said last night, I want to talk to you and I enjoy being around you."
Being a few inches taller than you, he didn't have to raise his eyes much to meet your gaze. You both looked at each other for a moment before you looked away first, biting your lip as that same feeling washed over you as the first time you saw him.
"You should tell me about yourself," he said, breaking the silence.
"Well, what do you want to know?"
"Anything," he said, "everything." You laughed at his response.
"Well, I guess I'll start with who I am and where I'm from," you said while getting the meat ready. "My name is y/n Jinn, daughter of the late Jedi master Qui-Gon Jinn, and I'm from Dohbar," you began. "I go by a different name there though. My people know me as y/n Monako."
"Queen Monako," Echo said, making you look at him slightly surprised. "I was talking with Anakin about you," he explained, looking down shyly again. "He said you were the queen, and he told me you liked these," he said walking over to where he had set down a box. You hadn't noticed him bring it in or set it down. "It's nothing much, just something small I thought I could get you." He fiddled with his thumbs nervously after he handed the box to you. You gently took it, and by now you felt like your cheeks wouldn't lose their blush until after he left. You opened it, and your eyes widened in shock.
"Deqish," you said, trying to hide the tone of your voice. Echo noticed the slight change however, and immediately began to internally panic.
"Oh, is- is there something wrong with it? I asked for the best and freshest batch available, I wasn't sure what flavors to get-"
You bit your lip while setting the box down. "No no, there's nothing wrong with it, I just think Anakin wasn't paying attention when I was talking about deqish," you said, not wanting to look at him. You felt guilty about not liking his gift. "I told him and Padmé how much I hated it."
"Oh," Echo said, suddenly feeling embarrassed by his attempted gift. "Sorry, I guess I should have probably asked you yourself, but I wanted it to be a surprise and-"
"Echo," you said, feeling his emotions through the force and grabbing his hands, smiling reassuringly at him, "it's a wonderful gift," you said.
"But I thought you just said you didn't like deqish?" His face was covered in confusion, making you laugh.
"I don't," you said, "but now you get to suffer with me and help me eat these terrible things." You giggled as he was still confused, so you grabbed one for each of you and put his in his hand.
"Here, I'll show you how bad they are." You watched as he studied the small candy for a second, and laughed when he sniffed it and made a disgusted face afterwards.
"On three," you said. "One....two....three!"
You both put them in your mouth, and you almost started choking on laughter when you saw him taste his. He quickly spit it out and looked around for something else to get the taste off his tongue. You finished your own, hating every last second of it, before handing him a noodle to try and help.
"The taste can last for days," you giggled as you watched the horror cover his face.
"You're joking," he accused, pointing a finger at you. You bit your lip and grinned while shaking you head,
"Nope, and we're eating the whole box tonight."
"No way am I eating another one of those," he said defensively.
"Yes you are," you countered playfully. "And were splitting them up evenly. Unless you don't want to continue trying to win me over," you jokingly threatened.
His eyes narrowed at you before he sighed and laughed. "I guess it's worth it if it means you'll keep talking to me."
You walked back over to the stove to continue preparing dinner.
"Tell me about how you became a Jedi," Echo said, leaning against the counter.
"Well," you said, flipping the meat over so the other side would cook, "I met my master when I was four. He came to Dohbar on a request by my father to bring me to the Jedi temple."
"Your father didn't get you himself?"
"No, he wasn't permitted," you explained. "With us being related, the council feared he may form an attachment to me."
"Right, you can't have attachments," Echo said sadly.
"Well, we're not supposed to at least," you said, "but I definitely don't follow that rule. I have many friends that I love more than anything. My friends from Dohbar, king Kwol Barren and Senator Ahnimaka Caree, both grew up with me. We went to school together and Ahnimaka always joined me on diplomatic trips as she was my handmaiden."
"But I thought you came to the Jedi temple," Echo said.
"No, I didn't. When Codo came to Dohbar, the king and queen told him they would not allow him to take me to become a Jedi. They said it was against royal tradition to allow a force sensitive to become a Jedi. He was able to negotiate with them, though. He convinced them and the Jedi council to allow him to stay on Dohbar and teach me as a youngling, and later take me as his own padawan."
"You must really be special to him then," Echo commented.
Your expression turned to one full of love, remembering how Codo had practically raised you as his own. "Yes, I think I am. He's like a father to me. The king and queen never really cared for me, they really only just cared that I knew how to rule Dohbar so that when they died, I would be ready to take over. Codo made me feel loved, and he still does. I look up to him, and even though I don't follow his path closely, he still has his influence over me."
"Well, if I'm lucky," Echo said, "I'll get to make you feel loved too." You felt yourself blush more (if even possible).
"Dinners ready," you said, turning the stove off. You grabbed two plates, two forks, and two knives and handed them to Echo, who set them down on your small table. You brought the pot of ebruah over, and then the plate with the stemau.
"This looks amazing," he said, causing you to laugh.
"Well, it's pretty hard to mess up ebruah, and stemau isn't that complicated to make," you replied.
"Well I know I could never make it," he countered, laughing as well.
"Well, next time you'll have to help me."
"You're inviting me back for dinner again?" Echo asked, his eyes lighting up.
"Yeah, as long as you help with the dishes when we're done," you teased, only half joking.
He childishly slid down in his chair and groaned when you said that, making you laugh again, before he sat up and continued eating, a smile on his face.