I dip the brush into yet more finer yellow and earthen tones before applying gentle strokes to the easel. I have been needing extra amber and platinum hues for today. But right now—as I actually make the brush strokes—I cannot help but feel like it is overkill. Purposeful overkill. Something unavoidable, but still aesthetic. In a silent…calculated way….

"Hehehe….I must say, Raven…," Terra smirks from where she sits on a stool across from me. "I love just how serious and focused you look…"

"Shhhh….," I hiss. "Stay…..Still….."

"But I am! I am!" she utters. Posed in her black and yellow Titan garb. Her hands in her lap. Her body relaxed and her head turned ever so slightly to the side as if to regard me in feminine happenstance. The lights of her desert-themed room illuminate her front, side, and side…giving me a perfect perspective for the portrait. "I'm just talking, is all!"

"Your mouth moves…," I murmur. Stroking. Brushing. Eyeing her. Brushing some more. I stand before an easel with the brush and palette. I have my robe removed and draped over a nearby chair. I always paint in just my leotard. I'm not entirely sure why. "Believe it or not, I do have to paint your mouth at one time or another. You don't want me messing that up, do you?"

She smiles. "It can't be that complicated."

"You know Beast Boy's portrait?"

"Yeah….."

"Remember how blurred the face is?"

Terra tries to wince….but then tries even harder to not wince. "Ouch. Okay….I'll be still."

And—naturally—she is true to her for word the entirety of two and a half minutes. I am gently guiding the gliding contours of her silken-gold hair when she speaks up and says:

"I never once imagined you to be a painter."

"Well surprise surprise…," I drone.

"Much less being willing to paint me," she says.

I actually respond to that: "Why do you find that surprising?"

"Just….well…..I didn't think you'd get along with me!"

"Painting you and giving you a hug are two completely different things….."

"Hehehe. Well, by all means, I'm not going to obligate you to hug me."

"Yeah. Thanks." Her ears. Her frame of face….

"Heaven forbid you so much as touch me. I guess that's where the painting part actually makes sense, huh? You can get to know the world and people around you without getting too intimate."

"Whatever…."

"Seriously! I think a deep part of you is wanting to reach out, Raven!" Terra shifts a bit where she sits—for comfort's sake—and again is perfectly still on the stool. "If you can't do it through word of mouth or hand….then your eyes do it!"

"My eyes…."

"Yeah. For instance…the best way you can be my friend is to paint me!"

"You are my friend, Terra," I matter-of-factly drone. "Illustrating you or not illustrating you is not a confirmation of that."

"Oh, but of course…."

"It is simply a tradition I have started up…," I dip in light…white colors. I brush. I stroke. "I have portraits of the other four Titans. I might as well have one of you."

"Hence…the things that Raven sees…."

"……I beg your pardon?" I raise an eyebrow.

"I mean…it's gotta be interesting. You being an artist. You're so quiet and….reserved at times, Raven. You've gotta have one heck of a perspective."

"Hrmmmmm….," I bite my lip and finish a few strokes. "Not any different from yours."

"……I'd much rather indulge in your perspective than mine, to be honest…"

I ignore that.

"Your mouth is going to be ghostly at this point, you realize that?"

"Hehehe. I can live."

And then I utter rather sub-consciously: "This will be……an interesting portrait…"

"Why's that, Raven?"

"I don't know if you will approve of it when it is done," I say. "It might not be very accurate."

She smiles. "All art is like that, right?"

"I'm just now starting to get to know you, Terra…," I say. "And you are very……….happy."

"Yup," Terra raises an eyebrow. "That a bad thing?"

"I don't know. Depends…."

"Hehehehe………"

"…………….you were far from happy when we first met you."

"And a month and a half later, you fall back in our laps. And you are so…..so different. Unexpectedly on the ball with things. Happy. Calm. Collected."

"I had lots of time to think, Raven. I was a jerk for having run off after the misunderstanding with Beast Boy. I sat back and re-examined my powers….."

"All by yourself?"

"Pfftttchyaa! Of course!"

"It was hard….but….but the one place in the world I want to be is here…with the Titans…I-I don't see where else I can go. Especially now that I can use my powers for good."

"As opposed to…….?"

"……….."

More brush strokes. A soft scrape. Light auras surrounding…billowing….

I inhale.

She exhales: "Do you…..doubt me as a Titan, Raven?"

"That's why I'm painting you, Terra."

"Oh?"

"The portrait speaks for itself."

She smiles gently. "Does it truly?"

I finish a stroke. I put down the brush. I put down the palette. I stand back and fold my arms. "There….it is done." I look over at her and drone: "You tell me…."

"……," she smiles curiously. She gets up from the stool. She pads over the carpet, shuffles around the easel, and looks directly at the painting. And her mouth falls agape. And she stares….the smile fading. Her eyes round….rounder. A softness. A sense of falling…not settling…but plummeting….

"……..," I stare at her.

She says something. More of a choke. A painful smile, she utters: "I….I don't know what to say…."

"It is the first thing that came to me."

"I-I can see that…..," Terra nods. Murmurs. Bites her lip. "I….."

Silence.

She sniffs. A shuddering breath. Her eyes are wet and she only half looks at me with crookedly curved lips as she manages: "I-If you can excuse me….I-I gotta go to the ladies' room. I'll be back."

She leaves the desert-themed room. Rather hurriedly. A wrist rubbing over her leaking eyes.

I gaze at her shadow, then back over to the painting. I shuffle to the easel and hold it up in the light to re-examine my work.

A golden-lit Terra sits on a painted stool. Sprouting from her petite back are two ivory-platinum wings. Angel wings. Shimmering. With sparkles. Heavenly. And above Terra's crown in jagged artistic aestheticism is a halo of flickering yellow and white.

Terra is beautiful. Calm. Serene. A Saraphim.

"Impressionist….," I murmur to the air. "Pure and simple…."

I place the easel down. While waiting for Terra…or waiting for nothing at all…I walk over and put my robe on. There is something soft about the blue material on my shoulders. Like Moses' veil when he came down from a mountain. Or a holy cloak keeping the energies of a prophet at bay so that she might hold onto some gentle sanity…