Moon Curse

Prologue

Long ago, before humans were created, there were just animals. All sorts of animals, billions more than there are today. But one day, tragedy struck. It was the day humans arrived.

Humans immediately began to kill off species, and within days, there were over a billion species that had gone extinct.

Nature is balance. If the scale is tipped, nature will force said scale back to its appropriate state of balance. Humans multiplied quickly, and had already overrun the planet when nature took notice of the unbalance on earth.

Because of this, it was too late to eradicate humans completely without causing mass destruction to earth and the organisms inhabiting it. So instead of lessening the weight of the human side of the balance, nature increased the weight for the animal side.
Suddenly, animals became much deadlier, much harder to kill. Many, called predators, had a natural instinct to kill, and their favorite species to kill were humans.

In addition to the more dangerous animals, the animals mutated, and suddenly had the ability to mate with animals outside their own species. This brought about animals such as the griffin, the chimera, and the manticore.
This happened for thousands of years, and one day something changed. One day, a lion fell in love with a bird. This would not be unusual, except inter-species love was not common. Mating, sure. But love was rare, even animals of the same species.

Of course, when the bird and lion mated, they produced a lioness that possessed giant brown wings. She was gorgeous, with golden fur that shone in the sun, and her wings were huge and had the most delicate feathers. She was a sight to behold.

Something miraculous happened. For the first time, a human fell in love with an animal. He fell in love with the lioness, and they mated and had a beautiful daughter, who had the face of a stunningly gorgeous human, but the body of a lion and pure white wings with ribbons of gold through them. Her fur was gold, and the fur faded away right above her breasts. Her hair was silky and golden, like her fur. Her eyes were purple and shone like gems. She was the most beautiful creature on earth.

Many men fell at her feet, or paws as they were. Human and animal alike, they all wanted to marry her. Not only was she beautiful, but she had the sharpest wit and a kind and gentle heart. However, secretly she longed to be human, to walk around like a normal human and to not have suitors waiting on her doorstep every second.
One day, she met a man who was handsome and kind, yet he was somehow different from the other suitors. They fell in love quickly, and were married not a week later.

But the man had a secret. Before he had sought to marry the beautiful creature, he had been engaged to another woman.

The woman was a powerful witch, granted power from Mother Nature herself, to even out the balance of life further. The witch was sort of needy, but pretty and sweet to all that met her. The man had not been in love with her, but she had been madly in love with him.

(I'm pretty sure you can bet how this ends. )

When the witch heard of the wedding, jealousy consumed her, and the very next day, she persuaded the gorgeous creature to meet with her in the witch's potion shop.

The witch convinced the creature to drink a specially-made potion. It guaranteed her the life she wanted: that of a human.

The creature took the potion, and she was transformed into a human. However, she looked completely different than she had before. She was still pretty, but her eyes were murky brown and her hair was frizzy, brown,
and short. Her skin was unhealthy looking and so white it was nearly transparent. Her face had become completely different as well, her lips thinning and her nose widening.
When she went home to see her husband, he did not recognize her. Instead, he tried to kill her for insisting she was his wife. When she did not return as he had known her, he died of a broken heart.

And the creature, human now, did not know of his death. She travelled around the world in her new form, searching for a way to revoke the potions doing, so she could return home to her husband.

Finally, she found a witch strong enough to dull the potions effects. The kind witch used her magic to transform the creature back into her regular, half-bird-half-lion-half-human form.
But the witch was a Moon Witch, which meant she got her power from the moon. She could only reverse the effects while the moon shone in the sky.

Every day, the creature transformed into a human, and every night, she reverted back to her true form. Due to the combination of witch magic, she was immortal, and could not die or be killed.

So the Sphynx was forced walk the earth alone, forever.