This is an outtake from the Midnight Conversations series. I decided to cut it and instead have Chiro walk in on the conversation between Sprx and Antauri in Monkey As The Rest of Us. But I think this stands decently well on its own?
Breathing Easier
Lady Cravenheart
Sprx was… different lately. Well—no. Different was the wrong word. Sprx was… more himself, lately. Since the war started he'd been… angrier. Prone to snapping—and then when he noticed it, he would draw into himself. Do maintenance on his ship (something he had once been content to leave to Otto) or polish his magnets. Go on patrol. Something. Anything he could do to get away from the team, it seemed.
But now he was… more of the jokester he once was. More confident. Self-assured. Bragging about his patrol times and doing tricks in the air again. Almost like normal. He was definitely still withdrawn—people didn't recover in a night, Chiro knew that, but… he was getting somewhere, instead of sinking deeper into a rut.
He still hadn't talked to Nova, still wasn't truly happy, but… it was a start.
Antauri was different too. Ever since he'd become the silver monkey, he'd been… withdrawn. Distant. Where once Chiro could sense Antauri nearby, and even get a sense of his feelings… he felt only a vague presence. Antauri had—almost literally—drawn in to himself. There had been a time where he wondered if it was really Antauri that he had pulled across the veil, while he was hyped up on Power Primate.
But… now he could feel him again. Not much. But there were cracks in the armor—cracks that seemed to grow bigger every day. Antauri wasn't some vague, barely-there presence; he radiated again. He was a warmth on the edge of Chiro's consciousness, and sometimes, when he really focused, he could catch snippets of feelings.
There might have been a war on their front step, but he felt like the monkey team was breathing easier for the first time in a very long time.