"Once upon a time, there was a terrible Witch and a great Wizard, both cursed by the gods in different ways. The Wizard was a man cursed with responsibility and guilt – a man doomed to try and fail for all eternity in ever changing skin. The Witch was a woman cursed with unending anger and hatred, her twisted visage a beautiful yet horrible sight to behold – a woman doomed to never know peace. Despite their differences, the Witch and Wizard were lovers and lived together in peace and harmony. Both brought a sense of balance to the other, two individuals who existed apart from the realms of humans and yet fit together perfectly. The Witch and the Wizard eventually married and brought into the world a daughter. Up until the moment of their daughter's birth, both the Witch and the Wizard had accepted their curses for what they were and did not blame the gods. However, when their child was brought into the world, they raged. And for the first time, they cursed the gods for the ways they had cursed their family.

Their child, the sweet and innocent babe who rested in her mother's arms as she cried out for food, that child's eyes had black sclera with red irises, and bulging, crimson veins rippled out from them onto the rest of her face. She looked like her mother. Even worse, the baby did not drink the milk her mother provided. The poor child experienced violent nausea whenever she fed off the bounty of her mother's breast. The Wizard and the Witch tried everything they could think of, but still their child could not eat anything they had to offer. Scared and anxious about what would become of their child, the Witch could not help but recall her own twisted visage, how it had been likened to the monsters known as Grimm, and the eerie way her own child's eyes resembled the monstrous creatures. Horrified at the direction of her own thoughts, the Witch nevertheless asked her husband to retrieve a knife from their kitchen. The Wizard was confused, but he complied with his wife's request without question.

Grimm. The Witch repeated that word in her head over and over as she held the knife in her hand, her child still crying in her arm. Almost as if she were in a trance, the Witch did not hesitate to slice her own finger along the edge of the blade, blood immediately spilling out of the fresh wound. Ignoring her husband's desperate pleas to cease her madness, the Witch placed her bleeding finger into the mouth of her infant daughter, somehow knowing that this was the only way her child would survive the day. The babe's cries were silenced immediately as it sucked the blood from the open wound. Upon consuming the red liquid of life, it did not take long for the baby's eyes and features to transform and resemble all other humans. Both the Witch and the Wizard realized immediately that their child was a monster in human skin. A creature that would earn the ire of humanity simply for existing. And yet, when the Witch looked down at the now sleeping face of their child clutched tightly in her arms, her beautiful baby girl, all she felt was love. Love, and the fierce desire to protect her child from any who would try and harm her. All it took was a single glance at her husband's face to realize he felt the same. Their child was a monster, but they would raise her with love and affection, no matter what it required of them. The Witch and the Wizard made victims of many people in order to get the amount of blood required to raise their child. They were always on the move, never staying in one town or city long enough to raise suspicion lest it bring harm upon their sweet little girl. As their daughter aged, she required more and more blood, but eventually even that was not enough to sustain her. She needed human flesh to survive.

Over the years, it become more and more apparent that this girl was humanity's true, natural predator. A creature whose skin was resistant to damage, whose bones were denser and more durable. She was stronger than humans, faster than them. Her senses were sharper and her intellect just as high. Most terrifying of all to any who realized it, however, was that despite her monstrous nature, she was still capable of producing aura. The baby had grown into a girl, and a woman thereafter. Always hiding what she was and what she could truly do. Living among humans while never being one of them. A threat even more terrifying than the grimm, and one far closer to home. Just as her parents had before her, the woman fell in love and started a family of her own. Her husband was human, but their children were like her. They were monsters in human skin. As were their children after them. On and on the legacy of man-eaters went, always persisting in secret.

Ghouls, humanity came to call them. Grimm cloaked in the flesh of mankind. Monsters that snuck around within towns and cities to prey upon unsuspecting humans. Most people believe that ghouls are only myth or legend; and yet, in the dark of night, some swear you can hear the screams of victims where no traces of grimm can be found. They say to look for mutilated bodies with bite marks not from any beast, but from the teeth of a human. They say to watch out for those that do not eat, to be wary of those who seem to always have death following in their wake. They say ghouls live among us, hiding, waiting for their chance to feed once more!"

Saphron Arc looked up from the book of fairy tales to find her four youngest siblings cowering in fear under blankets and behind pillows. The oldest Arc daughter chuckled mirthlessly, realizing only then that the old fairy tale may have been a bit too real for her younger siblings. "You all don't have to hide you know," she said, trying to assuage their fears, "ghouls are just a story meant to scare people."

From the corner, little Noire, her third youngest sibling, poked her head up from behind a pillow, her stuffed black bunny held tightly in her grasp. "Really?"

"Yeah, really?" Blanche, the second youngest, echoed her twin, the hope in her words practically palpable.

"Yes, really," Saphron beckoned the two young girls toward her place on the couch and pulled them into her side before wrapping her arms around them comfortingly. Their small fingers desperately grasping at her clothes. "Don't you think the four kingdoms would have some real information on ghouls if they actually existed? We know everything about grimm after all, but ghouls aren't mentioned outside of books like this." Saphron gestured to the fictional work resting on the coffee table.

"So, the rest of the stories in these books aren't real either?" Jaune, the only boy and fourth youngest Arc child asked nervously as his voice cracked; head still covered by the blanket he had tried to hide under.

"Nope, they're all just myths," Saphron assured him.

"The Story of the Seasons?" Blanche asked, craning her neck upward to meet her older sister's eyes.

"Myth," Saphron declared.

"The Infinite Man?" Jaune piped up once more.

"M-Y-T-H, myth."

"The Girl in the Tower?" Sarcelle, the youngest of her siblings, asked from her place behind them all. She had climbed up from behind the couch to hang over the edge and onto Saphron's shoulder.

"Same as all the others, just a myth." Saphron extracted herself from the mess of limbs and pillows and rose from the couch. "Alright, kiddos, each of you can have one snack in the kitchen but after that it's time to settle down and get ready for bed, okay?"

"Got it, Saph!" Noire said excitedly as she led her two younger sisters into the kitchen with Jaune bringing up the rear.

"Hey, Saph?" Jaune had paused shortly before exiting the room, his diminutive body half turned around to address his older sister.

Saphron paused her task of picking up all the pillows and blankets scattered around the floor. "Hmm, what's up?"

"So, I know you said they aren't real, but if they were..." Jaune paused, nervously glancing toward the ground. "If they were real, do you think huntsmen and huntresses would be able to stop ghouls?"

Saphron smiled warmly at her only brother, walking over to give the boy that desperately dreamed of being a hero, of being a huntsman, a gentle hug. "Of course, they would, sweetie. Huntsmen and huntresses are heroes, aren't they? They could beat any monster out there, grimm, ghoul, or otherwise!"

Jaune seemed to regain a bit of his cheerful disposition as he pulled away. "Thanks, Saph. I'm probably still going to have nightmares but that helps a lot."

The eldest sister couldn't help but laugh at her brother's honest way with words before her attention was drawn away from the younger kids.

"Nice words there, Saph, but are you sure lying to them is the right move?"

Saphron sighed deeply at the Arc family's black sheep, a literal descriptor given that the second oldest Arc sibling, Scarlet, made a habit of dying her hair black instead of leaving it blonde like everyone else did. "Ghouls aren't real, Scarlet, you know this as well as I do."

"Do I?" Scarlet's voice was laced with condescension and disbelief. She then walked forward flipped her scroll around to reveal an article detailing the strange number of mutilated bodies consistently found within cities. "Maybe I'm just crazy, but it seems to me that the existence of ghouls is pretty obvious to anyone that actually wants to pay attention."

Saphron rolled her eyes. "A lone grimm or two sneaking their way into the cities and killing someone is tragic, but not unusual at all," She countered her sister's conspiracy theories easily, somewhat exasperated at the girl's obsession with the occult given that the little ones were still within relative earshot. "Plus, as sad as it is, that could easily be the work of serial killers."

It was Scarlet's turn to roll her eyes, though she accompanied it with a scoff. "Yeah, the official stats say that it's either lone grimm sneaking into the cities or serial killers, but that could easily be a cover-up to mask ghoul killings!" Scarlet swiped on her scroll once more. "See, right here! It's a report cross referencing the supposed number of deaths from grimm within the city against confirmed sightings of grimm inside the walls, and guess what, the statistics don't line up at all!"

"You're forgetting the serial killers." Saphron said before pulling her gaze away from her sister's smug features to briefly glance at the date the article was written. "And there, like I thought, that article is almost 15 years old. What are the statistics ever since Vale began to implement the tech from Atlas a decade ago?"

Scarlet huffed, her bangs falling back over her eye in the process. "Well, no shit the statistics will align better now. These days, the stats are purely a result of the tech controlled by the Council! They get to release whatever data they want."

Saphron dumped the bundles of cloth she'd picked up back onto the couch cushions. "You're genuinely convinced there's an entire conspiracy at works surrounding the existence of ghouls?"

"Yep," Scarlet said, popping the 'p.' "At this point, the governments of the world can't afford to let the public in on the secret because there would be rampant panic and distrust, which would just attract more grimm and bring even more problems."

The eldest Arc sister pursed her lips but chose not to press the issue further. There was no point in arguing when neither side was ever going to concede their point. "Well, I'm not convinced, and neither are most other people, so at the very least please don't go sharing your theories with the others, okay?" Saphron asked earnestly. "We already have enough problems getting Sarcelle to talk to new people, we do not need her to add to that by making her worry about them being a damn ghoul."
Scarlet snorted, folding her arms beneath her breasts. "Hey, I'm not a complete ass-hole. I'm not going to try and scare the kids, I promise. I let you give your whole fairy tale spiel without interrupting after all, didn't I?"

"You're an inspiration to older sisters everywhere."

"Damn right I am!"

OoooOoooO

Author's Note:

I had honestly forgotten I wrote this way back when (I can't recall) but found it on my computer, edited for a few hours, and voila. I don't know if I'll ever continue writing this (probably will the next time I go on a Tokyo Ghoul and/or RWBY fic, but no promises), but I felt the desire to post it all the same. Hope you enjoyed, I'd forgotten half of what I'd written so I sure did. :)