"You can ask..." Ptricia said, then shook her head.<br/><br/>"It's okay, I have no particular problem with discussing it. Besides, blood frenzy sn't exactly right. It's more... well, you have to remember that the first sphinxes were _created_, not evolved, and created to be temple guardians. For her first century, a sphinx is little more than a mindless animal, attacking anything that invades the area she's claimed as her own. That fierce protectiveness, and feral rage, stays with us, even when we start to develop minds of our own.<br/><br/>"I have 29 centuries of knowledge and experience as a sentient being, and have earned to focus and control that part of me well, better than most in fact. One of the reasons there are no androsphinxes, males that is, or even lesser sphinx types, is that they didn't. For that matter, there are only maybe a half dozen gynophinxes like myself left, and without males, or the ancient sorceries that crafted us, there never will be any more."<br/><br/>She sighed. "We were made too combative, and there were never more than a few hundred of us ever. With mating duels that turned lethal, and the fact that we often stood between some very nasty people and stuff they wanted, and just bad luck, or bad decisions, sooner or later, that overdeveloped fighting instinct got us killed. Yes, we''re very tough and magically empowered, but neither invulnerable or indestrutable."<br/><br/>"Even I have a hard time of it. You and Reizu are mentally marked as protect at all costs. Back when you agreed to me acting as head ofsecurity, that allowed me to do it. So you're both safe, whatever happens to me. But if I see a major threat... well you saw how I acted around that pink dragon, and again at the cafe. I can often keep it under control to some extent, but occasionally I have to go fully feral, turn into this nearly unstopable demonic killing machine that won't stop until all the threats are dead, or it is. The trigger is different, but the results are the same. I _am_ a monster, but unlike you, I've had three thousand years to learn to live with it."