The Nexus

[Palace]

If Sapphira thinks agonizing pain is going to be enough to keep Miranda from doing what she set out to do, she doesn't know her very well. Willpower is one of the woman's defining characteristics; if there is nothing that is physically preventing her from shoving Sapphira back into a cramped tube, she's going back into the cramped tube.

There's just going to be significantly less back-talk involved. Miranda won't be saying anything until she's certain Sapphira is secure again.

Palace
Sapphira finally leaps at Miranda, moving to bodily prevent the maneuver.
There's a flash of movement and a sickening crack, and the former demon queen is sent sprawling on the floor, her skull caved in.
Sekhmet shifts her grip on the hammer in her hand, looks at Miranda, and nods, as Sapphira's head begins to reform. "Seal it! Now!"
"Found your claws, my lioness?" That seems to touch a nerve in Sekhmet.
"You have no right to call me that!" In a rage, she smashes her mother's head again. "Where was that when we last met? You've been holding out on me!"

[Palace]

click!

Miranda squeezes the cylinder shut, the metal visibly buckling and glowing in her grasp before she releases it, biting her lip and dropping the now-sealed cylinder to her side.

Now it's just time to see if locking up the artifact like that cuts off Sapphira's projection. She certainly hopes so.

Palace
"You almost managed... To make me... Proud." Sapphira's projection crumbles to dust. Sekhmet looks disgusted. The hammer slowly slips from her hand and clangs against the ground. "You were right," she finally manages to say.

[Palace]

"...I'm really hoping that was directed at me and not her." Miranda pants, picking up the cylinder and clinging to it tightly, as though expecting Sapphira to burst out of it again at any minute. "Are you okay? You look... shaken."

Palace
"Uh, it is," Sekhmet confirms. She looks exhausted, like the brief encounter sapped all her energy. "I, uh," how does she even respond to that comment? "I'm, uh, fine." she definitely isn't. Sapphira managed to really get under her skin. Enough for the normally pacifist demon queen to get not only violent, but brutally so. And Sapphira didn't care that this brutality was directed at her, she appreciated it all the same.

[Palace]

"Sure. And I'm Mary Queen of Scots." Miranda says, setting the cylinder back down. "...Look. I'm not your husband or your therapist. You don't have to tell me what's bothering you about this whole thing, and to be honest, I can probably guess anyway." She puts a hand on the demon queen's back. "But I'd like to think I'm a friend. And if there's anything I can do... well, I'll probably end up being a burrita about it, but I'd like to help."

Palace
"You are a friend. But it's nothing, really." Sekhmet doesn't sound sure. And it's definitely not nothing. It sounds like she's trying to deceive herself rather than Miranda.

This is probably not something to let fester. Sure, Miranda's not Sekhmet's therapist, or her husband, but she is in a position to help.
The pieces to the puzzle are all there, she just needs to put them together. Clearly it has something to do with Sekhmet's relationship with Sapphira and something Sapphira did or said during that last encounter.

[Palace]

"...All right, then." Miranda says, popping open her Hotbox. "If it's nothing, then we can get back to business. I happen to have here a nearly-flawless disposal device. Anything I throw in-" She casually drops the cylinder into it, "-I can subject to a flush function, which flash-converts in a series of nuclear fission reactions, followed by burning it into plasma, which is then scattered along the omega axis as interdimensional noise. The logical conclusion of the phrase, 'not a stone left on stone'." She closes up the box and hovers her thumb over the button. "It goes without saying, there's no coming back from that. So if you have any other reservations, anything on your mind at all, that needs to be considered before the wretched thing is obliterated from reality, now would be a good time to bring it up."

Palace
"You can't..." Sekhmet starts. She clearly doesn't like the idea. "... It wouldn't work anyway. She always comes back." She motions towards the exit. "Let's get out of here, this place is gloomy."
She doesn't wait for Miranda to confirm.

She heads up the stairs, then out of the palace, and towards the mountains, walking in silence.
But it will be a long walk, which gives Miranda plenty of time to interrupt Sekhmet's brooding.

[Palace]

"I'm pretty sure I just got through explaining that I absolutely can." Miranda replies, finger on the button. "So unless you're explicitly ordering me not to, I will."

And now Sekhmet is walking away.

Miranda frowns at that. She was extremely clear about the nature of the decision being made here. And neither she nor Sekhmet has the luxury of moping around while a powerful demoness sits on her hip.

beep!

The entire process will take a few seconds, at most.

Miranda considers following Sekhmet, but it's clear the demon queen doesn't really want to talk. And Miranda's got some of her own stuff to process. She should just leave Sekhmet to sort this out on her own, like a proper queen and not a moody teenager.

Of course, she has to follow anyway, for one simple reason.

"Excuse me, your highness? Only one of us can make a portal back to the material world." She points out.

The relic is fed into the device as Sekhmet stares dumbly, and in a few seconds, it's gone.
Sapphira is permanently dealt with. So why does Sekhmet feel such a deep pit in her stomach? Why does she feel like they just made a terrible mistake?

Miranda's statement shakes her briefly out of thought. She gestures and a portal opens. "You can go. I'm staying here." It doesn't seem like a good idea for Sekhmet to stay, and Miranda can't force her to leave.
But she might be able to convince her.

"...Okay, you know what? No, you're not." Miranda crosses her arms. "You're not staying here, alone, where you can mope about this forever, and I mean literally forever. You're going to go home. You're going to hug your husband and talk about each other's day. You're going to help Mary with her math homework. You're going to take Aethelred on a stroll through the grounds and put him down for a nap while telling him just how much his mommy loves him. You are not going to sit here and let life run past you because it got really hard all of the sudden."

Miranda puts a hand on Sekhmet's shoulder. "Look at me. You're not some schoolgirl. You're a grown woman, a mother, and a queen. And all three of those mean carrying on when things get tough." She gives the demon queen a little squeeze. "If there's something you can do to help you unwind, do it. If you need to talk to anyone in particular to process what happened, talk. But whatever you do, do not neglect your duties or your family, and do not drop out and give up. Am I clear?"

Palace
Sekhmet looks conflicted. "I, uh, but I... Uh I..." Miranda has a point, but she would rather stay in these gloomy surroundings. "I can't... Not now. I don't belong up there anyway. It's safer for them if I'm not around." That's quitter talk. The encounter was so short, yet something about it wounded Sekhmet deeply. This isn't like her, she normally loves life and light and the fresh air and green, growing things. She would never abandon her family. And she would never give up so easily. Whatever is on her mind needs to be addressed.

"Based on what I saw, I'd draw the opposite conclusion." Miranda replies, hands on her hips. "You took on and beat the former queen of hell. Easily. The safest place anybody you love can be is right behind you."

Her expression softens a bit as she continues. "...You haven't had to do anything remotely like that in a while, have you?" She asks quietly.

Palace
Sekhmet doesn't seem convinced. "The safest place for anyone is as far away from me as possible!" She gestures emphatically, sparks flying from her fingertips. "Look at yourself, Miranda. Everyone near me gets tangled up in demonic corruption!" She even got Miranda killed (although she's not thinking about that right now, and doesn't understand how that's possible. "Look at Mary! I saved her life, but I've just set her up to be damned for eternity!" Prumathe nearly died, my father's mind was shattered..." Her father? Has she ever mentioned him to Miranda before?

[Palace]

"Knock it off."

Miranda says the words calmly, but never takes her gaze off of Sekhmet for even a moment. "I don't remember you ever shooting me with a dart full of venom." She says, arms crossed. "And Mary... from what I recall, you saved her from damnation. And what she's set up to inherit certainly isn't anything to sneeze at. There's no way you can claim your influence on her was anything but a net positive."

Miranda takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. "...Look. I've spent too much time in that boat to think 'it really isn't your fault' is going to be much of a reassurance. Sapphira probably didn't blame herself, either, and yet a lot of what we're all going through can be traced back to her. Press that angle too hard, and you could end up just like her. I get it." She gives a solemn little nod. "I'm also not going to tell you it's within your power to fix everything. Not only is that a completely unfair amount of pressure to put on you, it just isn't true. Even if everything went back to the way it was before Sapphira, everything between now and then still happened and there will be consequences. You can't change the past. Nobody can. And believe me, many have tried."

Miranda comes up to Sekhmet and puts a hand on her back. "...But what you do have is still important. You have a husband who loves you. You have two beautiful children. You have friends who care about you and are willing to make sacrifices for you. You have a kingdom that's counting on you, and subjects who adore you. Alongside many who don't, granted, but still." She gives the demon queen a little pat on the back. "What do you accomplish by walking away from that, apart from leaving a big, Sekhmet-shaped hole in it? Will your children really be happier without their mother? Prumathe without his wife? How about me, without my friend?" She takes hold of Sekhmet's hand and gives her a firm little nod. "You're here. You're a part of our lives. And even if everything bad that's happened were somehow your fault, I, for one, wouldn't trade a world with Sekhmet for one without."

Palace
"The shape of Sekhmet is going to change, Miranda," For a brief instant, Sekhmet takes on a monstrous and inhuman aspect, clad in spiny chitinous armor and smouldering with sulphurous flame. "I know too much now to be carefree about my position. Power corrupts, Miranda, and immortality leads to madness. Sapphira started out with noble intentions. She wanted to show mercy to the damned. But..." Miranda's now seen what became of her. "I don't want to inflict the monster I will become on the people I love."

[Palace]

The older she gets, the more her mind will degrade and the more it'll hurt her loved ones? Where has Miranda heard that one before?

"Maybe. But for now, you're still Sekhmet." Miranda says, changing tack slightly. "What you're telling me now is that, at some point, Sekhmet will die and a monster will appear in her place. But until that happens, and not a moment sooner, we'll still have Sekhmet." She gives the queen of succubi a small smile. "...I'll make you this promise. When you finally go, I'll be right there to put down the monster. Your family won't have to suffer through one day of it." She wraps up Sekhmet's hand in hers. "But until then, you're here and you're needed. Go home."

Palace
"Uh..." Sekhmet looks quizzically at Miranda. Oh. She's not joking. "Okay. Uh, sure. There's, uh, one problem with that," Sekhmet doesn't really believe Miranda can kill her if she turns evil. "You, uh, will need more magic lessons. A lot more. And, uh, not from me. I can't teach more than the basics of what you need to learn."

[Palace]

"Leave that part to me." Miranda says simply, with all of the self-assuredness of someone who has more than one difficult assassination under her belt. "I promised you that I will do it, and I'm going to do it. The 'how' is my problem." She puts a hand on Sekhmet's shoulder. "...Come on. Let's get you home."

Palace
"Uh, all right. It's a bit of a mess, but, uh, let's go."
The portal opens onto a winding path in a tropical forest. That must be the new place, right? Sekhmet met Miranda at GLoG before sending her on the mission, but the Brignoles had already moved out of Hawthorn Cabin. It looks like Sekhmet wants to prove to Miranda that she is going home and not popping right back into hell. "There's still something you need to tell me."

[Palace]

"Maybe, but it can wait until you aren't in crisis." Miranda says nonchalantly, walking Sekhmet up the path. "I'll have it drafted into a formal report by the end of the week, which we can review at any time." She crosses her arms. "That said, factoring in time zones, Charcoal's still going to need us in a few hours. I'd see about taking her to a concert or something after this. She had a pretty rough go of it, as well."

???
"Right. Uh," It doesn't make any sense to Sekhmet. She doesn't need a report. That's not how she operates.
The path leads up to a stately house, freshly built. That must be the place. "A concert?" Sekhmet isn't normally interested in concerts.

[???]

"Yeah. A concert." Miranda replies nonchalantly. "She's very much into music. Even plays an instrument of her own, if I remember correctly. I want to say... violin? Cello? Four strings and a bow, I can tell you that much." She shrugs. "She was down there at least as long as I was. And she didn't have the psych conditioning that would make it easier for her to cope. Throw her a bone if you can; she's earned it."

???
"Uh, Miranda?" Sekhmet frowns, "You're thinking of Gloom." They don't even look alike... Although since succubi shapeshift that hardly means anything. "I'm, uh, not sure that's the right reward for Charcoal." She seemed like more of an adventuring type.

[???]

"Was it? Huh." Miranda rubs her temple for a moment, a frown slowly creeping onto her face. "...That sounds right, actually. Hn. I must be losing my touch."

She says it casually, but Sekhmet might be able to see a flash of genuine concern behind her eyes. She doesn't know entirely how her time in the pit- or her tryst with Charcoal- affected her brain. The latter in particular already seemed to have some unpleasant side effects. What if objectification was one of them? Seeing the succubi as interchangeable? She can't comfortably say that it isn't.

...Maybe she's thinking about it too hard. Everybody has brain farts every now and then. No need to make a federal case out of it.

"...Same basic principle still stands." Miranda continues after a moment, trying to push past the mistake.

???
"Right. Uh, not a concert, something else." Sekhmet will have to think about what that is. She opens the door to the house. "I'll, uh, see you soon? For the rescue?" Unless Miranda refuses to leave Sekhmet's side during that time, in which case the scene should probably move over to Home.

[???]

Miranda does not, in fact, leave her side. But the conversation does devolve into trivium from there; tiny things Miranda can bring to Sekhmet's attention and let her quickly resolve to rebuild a sense of normalcy and remind her of her competence. Or just tiny things in general, so they still have an excuse to occupy the same room.

Palace Garden

Sekhmet's efforts at cultivating plants appears to finally be paying off! A yew sapling is forcing its way out of the ground. It's growing quite rapidly, too, which might be suspicious to anyone who knows about the usual growing habits of Taxus baccata, the European Yew. It won't take long for the tree to get large enough to start flowering, and even produce arils.

Sekhmet, even if she doesn't recognise what type of tree it is, might recognise it anyway; they commonly appear in English churchyards, and there's one growing at GLoG with a short fence erected around it to prevent children from getting too close.