The question was... what does Ethea want?
Soren turned it over for a moment, then accepted that he had no answer. He had been living in the same house as this woman for weeks now, had cooked for her every day, had sat across from her at every meal, and he still didn't know something as basic as what she enjoyed.
That was a problem worth fixing.
He waited until Ethea woke on her own, and once they had settled into breakfast, he set down the spoon and looked at her.
"Hey."
Ethea glanced at him.
"I was thinking of taking you out today." He kept his tone casual, like it was something he had only just thought of rather than something he had been sitting with since dawn. "Anywhere you'd want to go?"
Ethea's hand, which had been moving slowly toward her bowl, stilled for just a moment.
She looked at him with an expression that was hard to read: not quite surprise, but something adjacent to it, like a question she hadn't expected and wasn't sure how to answer.
A few seconds passed.
