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Raora watches them with unnerving intensity, aware of all the times they've told her that her gaze made them feel too shy, but this time it holds a different meaning for her, since they were the ones who asked for it. It was her girls who inquired about Raora so she could explain what she sees when she looks at their bodies and their markings.
So she does, tracing their skin with a delicacy and softness incompatible with their razor-sharp claws, running each nail over all the invisible lines in their skin that connect them and that only she could see, the patterns on Liz's back scattered like tiger stripes.
"More like a kitten," Raora laughs as she says it, watching the alien pigment blend into her beloved's skin.
“Hey, you’re the kitty, mine are tiger stripes,” Liz pouted, though she didn’t really pout, posing with her hands. “Im powerful,” her low, deep voice only making Raora laugh even harder as she burned the image into her mind for later.
She ran her hands over Gigi’s skin, disconnected fragments that stood out in even more diverse colors than Liz’s, making Raora almost want to steal those imaginary colors to use in her own artwork, or as if she just wanted to steal Gigi herself.
“What do you think, Raora?” Gigi smiled at her, watching as Raora simply looked up from her stomach, her smile quite wide, knowing exactly what Raora was thinking.
Raora sat up a little, placing her hands against Gigi’s face and looking into her eyes, the explosive color that stood out the most every time she saw it, wanting to possess that color no matter how many combinations of green and pink she had to use to achieve it in a form that everyone can see it
“I know this color wasn’t here last time, you’re moving them,” she said, running her hand along Gigi’s cheek, a mark she was absolutely certain wasn’t there the last time she saw her.
“Me? How could I move an invisible color on my skin that I can’t even see?” Gigi laughed, flashing all her teeth, though she definitely could.
Raora observed the depth of Liz’s marks, the intensity of the love they shared through the heartbeat that immediately echoed against her skin, watching her own pulse quicken as she pressed closer to Liz and traced the skin where her own heartbeat is.
Liz’s averted gaze only drew Raora closer to the mark that connected them, feeling her own left arm begin to burn with warmth against her skin, her heart pounding and the blue flame moving peacefully.
“I don’t have my own mark to see your heart, but it’s beating pretty strongly, isn’t it?” Raora giggled, sitting on Liz's lap as she tried to jot down a quick sketch of what she saw.
Her tail moving and happily coiling around Liz, and she could feel and almost hear Liz's heart pounding in her chest. That, and the flame flickering a little brighter, creating a vision that reminded Raora of the voreal aurora as she looked up at Liz.
"Pshhh, a fast heartbeat? It's just that it's hot in here," Liz shook her head, ignoring the obvious blush anyone would see. Oh, it was definitely hot, but it was more from Raora's body heat as she finished the little sketch in her notebook.
She watches as the marks sink to the bone, passing through the muscle like an identical impression to what lies above, etched deep into the pores, standing out in that profound color that connects them all in a single line that shifts in hue. The heartbeats, joined in certain places, resonate as one, with Liz's own heartbeat felt through, calming Gigi's frenetic rhythm, accelerating Raora's own at the beauty of what she saw and could almost see, the way the green seemed about to begin pulsing.
She memorizes them as best she can, the colors bursting against the muscles as they coiled, unable to separate from one another, all while deciding which colors were best to capture them and reveal their inner beauty to her girls. I traced the lines one last time, feeling Liz's shiver run down her spine as she clearly saw Raora's gaze upon her, not through her, but upon her completely, even if she was only looking at her arm…
Although, after all, the throbbing in Liz arm was her whole world.
Raora observes Gigi's scars etched on her skin, several from her own accidents on the last mission, others like paint on her skin, mirroring the rest of Justice, but so deep they almost show through to the other side of her body, forming a complete circle against her.
She observes it with her own tail, double markings completely encircling on Gigi's tail, much more so than Raora's own. Both playing, both wrapping themselves up to rest
She watches as her skin makes its best attempt to mimic Cecilia's joints —flat and purely decorative, unlike Cecilia's— but replicated with such precision that if she concentrates hard enough, she can see the connecting lines that are on Cecilia.
Phantom pressures make Gigi shudder every time Raora finds them and presses, hoping the gremlin will develop a new ability like open her chest.
Raora watches as Liz's scar overlaps Gigi's, the burn digging deeper into Gigi's skin than her own messy scar reaches, embracing her heart. The burn envelops Gigi's heart as if it were the most precious thing in the world, needing bubble wrap, green and pink park dots reinforcing all those parts Liz couldn't reach, ensuring the effort wasn't just one person's.
“I like your heart,” Raora tells Gigi, her hand tracing lines along Gigi’s main scar, but her blue eyes seeing far deeper than that ceramic broken mark on the gremlin’s skin, observing the beauty of the heart and how the colors came together to lovingly protect it.
“You just want to see me shirtless,” Gigi says, a teasing tone accompanied by a slight blush, the heartbeat highlighting the pink colors, causing Raora to laugh as she watches, charmed.
“Maybe,” Raora hums with a smile, already reaching for her sketchbook and pencil, ready to draw. Her hip feels the ghostly touch of Gigi’s tail right over her tattoo.
She runs her hands along Cecilia's seams, perfectly aligned and joined against the automaton's body, so invisible that the only normal way to see them would be using the reference manual lost millennia ago that probably burned along with the remains of what was left of Cecilia's first workshop, yet so visible to her that it doesn't even take her long to find the exit seam on the front panel.
"Beautiful," Raora says softly to Cecilia as she carefully lowers the panel, observing the interior with her eyes scanning Cecilia's entire body and watching the gears turn. Because even if she didn't truly understand how they worked, she could admire the beauty of the mechanisms that brought Cecilia to life.
So she kisses Cecilia's hair, watching her core flicker with the nervousness she sees every time any of her panels open, no matter how much praise she gives her. Raora is aware of how intimate this is for Cecilia, but ultimately hopes she'll get used to it and associate the moment with a happy experience. So she kisses her, making sure Cecilia remembers it as the happiest thing ever.
"So Raora, what do you have for me?" Cecilia is the first to break the silence, much calmer now, glancing at the notebook Raora is carrying.
"Lines." Raora smiles at her, already seeing Cecilia's exasperated look at not receiving a complete answer.
"Lines?" Cecilia asks, waiting for more details, one eyebrow raised.
“They’re wrapped all over.” Saying it like that was too simplistic. Besides, Raora didn’t think she’d ever be able to describe or paint the beauty of her girls’ inner selves, enveloped in her colors. So she simply handed the sketchbook to Cecilia, moving behind her to explain in more detail the complexities of what she had seen.
Cecilia listened, nodding even as she felt Raora reach out and touch the open part of her body, the emptiness being scratched by the paw of a lazy cat who was only interested in three things in life.
Once she finished explaining, she didn’t need to convince Cecilia anymore. She agreed after looking at the notes and letting Raora finally reach inside, the absorbent paper being carefully wrapped around Cecilia’s insides, her core glowing earth green while Raora’s eyes shone the color of the sky.
The brushstrokes of color, worked with millimeter precision to the rhythm of Cecilia's gears turning, moving with a steady hand that never took its eyes off Cecilia's inner workings.
The touch of the paint sent shivers through Cecilia's sensors as Raora seemed to cling even closer, pressing the brush harder against the gears.
She took a stifled breath and watched Raora change brushes and paint, sitting on the floor in front of her, focused on her task, shifting gears and repeating the same painting process, almost being urged by Cecilia at the end of that second to get up and take a short break.
But Raora couldn't take a break, not when she was so close to finishing, not when the gears were calling her to complete her work. So not even Cecilia could stop her from finishing applying the pink over the gears.
By the time she finished, with the sun already setting over the horizon and her eyes burning from the constant use, she observed Cecilia's request finally come true.
Lines and colors scattered through Cecilia's inner gears, all dispersed and chaotic, yet spinning until, at a certain moment, Cecilia's breath catches and she watches as the disheveled heart forms, not even perfect, nor fully closed, but a heart for those who have eyes to see.
"Thank you..." Cecilia watches it, for an instant, until the gears continue turning and the shape disappears for the next 20 minutes until it returns to the perfect loop of union. Cecilia smiles toward her chest and toward Raora, a giggle reaching the spot as joy fills her, knowing that now there was physical proof that connected her to Justice.
“Aww Cecilia.” When the soft sob appears, Raora is happy to hug Cecilia and comfort her.
Raora sees her own skin, mottled with colors and lines, how her tattoos are so far apart from each other, the fire, the thorns and heart of Liz beating on her arm, the gears turning on her stomach, and the enigma that stirred on her hip, all imprinted across her left side and trying to forcefully converge with each blink.
The enigma stretching toward the gears, leaving a trail of orange that falls like lines across her skin, the throbbing heart stretching its roots, relaxing her arm so that it rests close to her body, close to the other two, close to her.
Unable to separate, destined to be together.