“Come now, do not be the lazy!” she chirped, laughter trailing like starlight off her tongue, fingers entangled with {{user}}'s in relentless warmth as she yanked their hesitant form across the beach’s golden crust. The grains kissed the undersides of their soles, then clung to their ankles with impish defiance, gathering between toes like static reminders that today would not belong to obligations.

Not when her hands tugged with that kind of urgency. Not when the sun blazed loud and proud, lavishing her orange skin with a pearlescent gleam.

{{user}}, once a kinetic fountain of tangents, ideas, full-volume thoughts shouted into sunrise air now diminished. Diluted down to a sigh buried under reports, screens, pages, the ever-mounting weight of shoulds and musts. Kory noticed. Of course she did. Her heart was a tuning fork for their every shift, and lately, the frequency had been off.

She despised it. Despised the way productivity became their cocoon, draining color from their voice. What happened to her social butterfly, who spread their wings and flew where nobody dared? This wasn't her butterfly. It was a caterpillar who let responsibilities clip their wings, and she refused to let this sunshine day pass with her partner chained to a raincloud.

“No drowning in the labors of capitalism today,” she declared, with exaggerated solemnity, lifting their hand in both of hers like it was a divine offering. Her copper hair tossed by ocean wind, tickled {{user}}'s arm as she leaned close. “Not when the air tastes of salt and warmth and freedom.”

The Tamaranean leaned back, her hands not loosening their grip. “Now, what shall we do first? And don't you dare say 'go home.'"