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  The young adventurer fidgeted, too frozen in fear to reach for his dagger. The sphinx lay sprawled out on the narrow forest path before him, lounging and inspecting her...nails? Claws? He could hardly remember the riddle she had presented; he really should have prepared more for this sort of thing before setting out.

  "Any...chance you could repeat the question?" He stammered, hoping she had a sense of humor.

  "My patience is wearing thin. I will give you the riddle one more time and you will give me an answer. If you get it correct, you may pass. If not, well...These bones should be a hint," she stretched her lion legs and stated the riddle once more, "What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed?"

She stared at him with her golden feline eyes and smiled, waiting for an answer. From the navel up she appear to be human, and quiet lovely as well. Her midnight black hair rolled down her shoulders, back, and chest, covering her animal skin bra. However, from the waist down and shoulders down she was most certainly a sphinx. Golden fur with majestic wings spread out behind her back. Her lion tail twitched as she waited.

  The piles of animal and human bones, meticulously picked clean, made his stomach drop. He fumbled in the pockets of his cloak; even if he had coin to give he somewhat doubted the sphinx would take a bribe. What use did a sphinx have for coin? Her gaze bored into him, pushing him to make a mistake.

   "I feel like...this is a trick question," he offered meekly, stalling perhaps past the point where it was wise. "No one's ever gotten past here because there's no right answer. You're running a racket."

  His thumb found the hilt of his small dagger, hidden at his belt. He figured if he could goad her into coming for him in a rage, he could get a few shots in and fend her off. If he proved to be a challenge, she might decide he was more work than he was worth and let him go free. At least, he hoped that would work.

  "There is only one answer. I may be a beast, but it doesn't mean I don't play fair," she replied, glaring at him. "I can practically smell your fear. You can't be very old, can you? All alone in this wide world full of monsters."

  She stood up, stretched, and began to pace around. Her tail flicked and she ruffled her golden wings a little.

  "How many other beasts have you defeated? Two, three, none? Surely you've come armed with more than a toothpick."

  She was much bigger than she looked lounging about on the path. Her keen, predatory strides sent chills down his spine. She was right, he was terrified, but he couldn't deny that her taunts stung. Perhaps, he could lure her into more banter to buy himself some time? Likely not, he thought. The situation was rapidly deteriorating and he could only maintain his overconfident rogue act for so long. He gave his best smug smile, given the circumstances.

  "A toothpick you won't forget, I promise!" he spat, tossing his cloak to the side dramatically as he sprinted forward, dagger flashing and twirling in his fingers.

  Human adversaries usually couldn't keep up with him, but he played his cards too quickly. Her face contorted into an inhuman snarl as she roared at him. Right when his blade cut her left arm, her right paw came from the side and smacked him hard in the head. With the force behind the blow, he was knocked to the ground with his head reeling. Ears ringing and vision swimming from the swipe, he let out a strangled cry as he fell. The world around him blurred to colors for a moment. He felt a hard pressure on his wrist that forced him to let go of his dagger.

  "Had enough?" she purred, pressing the other paw down on his chest. "Do you want to do something stupid again?"

  For a moment, he could barely register that she was pinning him down. Slowly, her face faded into view, her hair brushing against his brow. Her eerie beauty filled him with dread...but on some level her power was intoxicating. Wriggling in vain, he only managed to twist his wrist even more painfully underneath her paw. As he struggled, his breath became labored, and with his chest constricted, his belly rose and fell desperately. He could barely gasp out a retort. He tried to spit one out, but the pressure on his lungs was too great; he only managed a wheeze. His struggles grew softer as he began to run out of air.

  "Having a hard time speaking?" she teased, crushing his chest a little more. "Maybe this will help."

  She eased off his ribs a moment, allowing him to fill his lungs with much need air. As the sphinx briefly shifted her grip, he gasped like a fish out of water, too worn down to roll away, much less flee. Yet, as soon as he was given freedom there, she took it away somewhere else. He barely registered the horrifying sight of her jaws opening far wider than any humans, bristling with deadly teeth. The sight of her large canines alone were enough to chill his blood. Lunging down quick, she wrapped her jaws around his throat. She could have easily crushed the life out of him, but she had bigger plans in mind. She tightened her grip around his throat just enough to have hold of him, yet loose enough that he could breath somewhat. He was sure that she would strangle him then and there, but the almost gentle pressure of her new hold only brought confusion to his bleary mind. The rise and fall of his belly grew almost relaxed.

  She chuckled, even with a mouth full of his throat, and began to drag him away to her lair. It didn't matter if he saw where she was going, it wasn't as if she planned to let him free afterwords. After all, his main view was of the sky and her face. Being this close would have allowed him to study the details of her face, though with a low supply of oxygen making its way to his brain he was lucky to still tell her apart from the sky. He could feel her hair tickle his face and was powerless to swat it away

  After strolling through a thin forest, she arrived at a cave. With surprising skill, she was able to drag him in without serious damage, just a few scraps here and there. She set him down, allowing a brief moment of relaxing and a regular flow of air. She went back to the entrance and pushed a large rock over it. With that, there was no way for him to leave.

  As she heaved a boulder across the entrance to her lair, he struggled onto his hands and knees, oddly dizzy even after being carried relatively gingerly. He briefly wondered if sphinx saliva was toxic. His eyes had difficulty adjusting to the gloom of the cave, but he could still make out what appeared to be the polished remains of more of her previous victims. Scuttling backwards, he put his back to the wall. He wasn't sure why she had taken him so far just to kill him, unless she wanted to it in the comfort of her home. Until then, he was going to keep kicking.

  She stretched and yawned, showing off her dangerous fangs that had met with many a throat of both man and beast. Ruffling her wings a little, she glanced back over at him.

"Ah, back to the matter at hand," she said gaily. "What to do with you now? I'm not very hungry after eating a caravan just before you had come. So, that's off the list....But I do enjoy games."

  She casually strolled over to him, her tail flicking like a cat's tail commonly did. When she got too close, he cocked his leg back, letting her know that this was her final warning before he struck. So, she sat down a few feet from his reach. Should he try to kick her, he'd have to risk stretching into her reach.

  "Since we are currently at a stand still until you make a mistake, why don't we chat? I won't be hungry for a few days anyways, I have plenty of time to wait," so saying this, she crossed her wrists and laid there like a common sphinx.

  Taken aback, he stared blankly for a moment, the sphinx's casual air almost lulling him. His eyes then narrowed as he took note of her very careful positioning.

  "You're awfully friendly all of a sudden," he spat, half leering at her and half resigning himself to his fate. There were worse ways to die than in the jaws of a beautiful...woman? he supposed.

  "It's not as if there isn't an abundance of food in this region...hunting is easy here." He shifted, fully sitting down with his legs splayed in front of him. "So why do you insist on preying on people like me? Whole caravans for that matter?" He eyed her now evidently full belly, mostly with revulsion but on some level fascination.

  "True, there is plenty of beasts in this area to eat, but I find men to be far more delicious. No hooves, claws, antlers, or fur, just soft and squishy," she licked her lips just thinking about it. "It helps that they generally come to me when trying to cut through my territory. And, they put up so much less of a fight than a deer does. I imagine you've never been kicked by a hoofed animal before."

  She shifted herself to be more comfortable on the ground with such a full gut.

  "And to be honest, I don't eat everyone. I'd be a true monster if I ate women and children. No, I eat men. Many of the ones I meet are more beast than men. So, don't go pointing fingers at who's the real monster."

  She finally resorted to laying on her side to get comfortable as appose to the common sphinx position of sitting up right. The relaxed lion pose was far more enjoyable with a full belly, whereas the sphinx pose was good for intimidation and hiding her true size. He was already intimated by her, so there was no need to emphasize.

  "But enough about me, why were you in my region? Why travel these questionable roads and not the safer ones?"

  He wanted to kick himself, or maybe scream for thinking it, but her catlike lounging was somehow deeply alluring. He found himself drawn to the casual, nonchalant way she expressed her power. Perhaps he admired her for her strength, or maybe he was just easily seduced. Either way he didn't want to let on that he was beginning to relax despite the circumstances.

  "No offense, but I'm not sure I entirely believe that you're so merciful to spare women and children," he shot back, more weakly than he would have liked, "but you have a point about men on the road I suppose..." His mind lingered to some of the brigands he had narrowly escaped.

  "I'm a wanderer by trade, you might say. I'm drawn to regions with exotic beasts and where nature is undisturbed. Look where that's gotten me." He chuckled dryly. He barely noticed that he was staring at the rise and fall of her belly again, as if hypnotized.

  She snorted and laughed, "Belittle me all you like, you're not really in the position to do so, but I suppose it doesn't matter. You have all the freedom you please until I decide what to do with you."

   For being trapped in her lair, he was far more relaxed than she had expected. She took a sniff of the air and could smell something was a little off about him. Not only did he smell different, but he fidgeted about. This wasn't nervousness, it was a behavior she had run in to only a few time in her life, always with males. Out of a sort strange curiosity, she wanted to see how far he would dare to go.

  "Well, I would say it has gotten you pretty far in your travels. Few have entered my home and none have left. Perhaps you'll be lucky enough to leave should I pity you enough or grow bored."

  He smirked, "I wouldn't have expected you to be such a gracious host."

  It didn't quite occur to him that this might be a terrible plan, but could he charm his way out of this? Sphinxes liked word games, didn't they? It was clear that he fancied himself rather cunning, holding a belief that he could wiggle his way out of almost any situation. He slowly, carefully rose. Even laying down, she still had potential to be a threat. She appeared small, but the moment she was on those paws he was in trouble.

  "So, was there ever an answer to the riddle? So few have survived encounters with you....not all humans could possibly be that dumb."

  "Hm, not all of them I suppose. Most people know not to travel through the well-known territory of a sphinx. It's not often I get travelers, but when I do, it's commonly thieves and mercenaries looking to go through less traveled roads. They write me off an a myth and die for their foolishness," she explained it elegantly and casually. Death was nothing to her, just another part of life. She saw herself doing the world a favor. And why not, who would miss them anyways?

  When he moved around again, her tail twitched. He was plotting something, as humans often do. Perhaps she would speed it along. She dragged herself closer to him and stared at him, her amber eyes boring into him, daring him to make his next move.

  "Don't you have a family? Why do you court death the way you do? Don't you value your own life?" she questioned him.

  "Sure, I value my life, but a life without exploration isn't worth it to me," his voice wavered just a bit.

  She was uncomfortably close now, and panic set in as it dawned on him that she was seeing right through his hasty scheme.

  "I..uh...admit I didn't believe that you existed either. I thought your kind was extinct..." His eyes darted around as he wondered if there was another exit to the cave further into the tunnel.

  Ready to bolt at a moment's notice, he met her gaze, hoping that she couldn't smell his fear returning. "Are there many of you left? Sphinxes, I mean. I heard when I was a child that you aren't born, you spring to life from statues."

  His plan had now boiled down to getting her to start talking and making a run for it while she was distracted. Desperate times and all that.

  Her gaze shifted down and she looked a little wounded by his remarks.

  "No, there aren't many of us left," she snapped back. "We were created to punish men, but have slowly slipped into myth with our decline."

  The end of her tail twitched in irritation. Perhaps he was outliving his usefulness. She moved herself right up to him so he was practically trapped under her. Pressing her forehead into his and stared into his eyes.

  "You tell me. Do I look like a myth to you?"