CHAPTER TWO

Levi Ackerman was unapproachable to say in the least. He was the man mothers pulled their children on the other side of the sidewalk for. The furrow in his brow refused to smooth out and the quiet, annoyed frown was always present. But most had expressed their displeasure that it was, in fact, his eyes that held the most disturbing of qualities about him. Firstly, they were an odd color. They were supposed to be a pale blue, but they were greyer more than anything and heavily lidded. It made him seem as if he was constantly bored or annoyed, which wasn't all that far from the truth. However, there were three things in this world that never failed to have him smiling or chuckling every day.

Isabel, Furlan, and animals. It was true animals always seemed to be attracted to him for some reason. Levi guessed that only really made two thing that never failed to make him happy as Isabel might as well have been an animal.

But no matter how well animals liked him, what he was looking at now was way too odd. A buck, which towered over him, nuzzled the side of his face happily. Levi's brain was still dazed by sleep, he had barely awakened, yet he knew this was no dream. Only when the buck licked his cheek did Levi stumble backward.

This only encouraged the buck to follow him and lower its head once more to stare directly into his eyes. Its fur was of a very light brown and, of course, naturally short. Its large, branch-like antlers stood tall and proud, showing how powerful it truly was. Levi supposed it wasn't an 'it', definitely a 'he'.

"What kind of messed up shit am I on?" Levi muttered.

"You a druggie?"

"Holy shit!" Levi yelled as he heard a voice rumble in his head.

"Holy mother nature are you loud, calm down!"

The voice continued to rumble in his mind and Levi's heart began to clench in panic, the blood was pounding in his ears. He was going crazy, this was it! Isabel and Furlan would send him to the asylum and leave him to rot with only a calendar of cute kitten pictures.

That last part proved how far gone he truly was.

"I'm going insane! I am truly and utterly going insane." Levi muttered, a sudden dark cloud of gloom suffocating his aura. Yesterday he had thought himself paranoid after he heard a sound in the bushes and bringing out his gun. Today was the day he truly deemed himself to be legally crazy.

"It's okay! You're not crazy."

Even through his panic, his muddled mind clicked in sudden realization and turned to face the buck that was still staring at him.

"It's you...isn't it...you're the one talking to me in my head." Levi figured he couldn't get even crazier and decided to ask the impossible question of the century. No way was this buck talking to him. The voice was a form of stress and lack of sleep.

"Yeah it's me. I know you're probably confused so let me introduce myself." Like the proud animal he was, the buck straightened his back and kept his antlers high in the air. "My name is Erwin and I am an animal-shifter." If bucks had the ability to blush, Levi was sure that 'Erwin' would be turning pink with pride with...whatever the hell he was.

"Was that supposed to make me feel better?" Levi asked sarcastically. The fact that "Erwin" had told him what he was held no comfort for him.

"Wow, you are a sarcastic little thing aren't you? Don't worry papa is here to make it all better." Levi's life suddenly became much clearer in the fact that he had never tasted buck meat before and wondered how it would taste like.

"Don't talk like that you pervert! Now tell me why you are near our camp and why is it I can hear you in my head." The short male demanded. He was in no mood to play guessing games as to why an animal with messed up genetics was talking to him.

"Well I heard some humans had set up camp near here and decided to check it out because we never, I repeat, never get any visitors." Erwin kicked at the grass before slowly lowering himself onto the forest floor, tucking his long limbs underneath him.

Levi knew for a fact his village did not care so much for the Trost Woods, it was cursed after all. However, even he would have thought some of the village teenagers would be stupid enough to venture into the woods at night. Guess Levi underestimated the dumb fucks.

"For your answer as to why you can hear me in your mind is one I cannot give." Erwin's sudden voice had shocked Levi from his thoughts and into a fit of anger.

"I'm over here panicking that I might be fucking insane and you're telling me that you can't give me some sort of explanation why I am hearing an ANIMALS thoughts in my head?" Levi felt as though he had a right to know when animals would start talking in his head. The thought of birds and squirrels engaging him in a conversation started to turn his stomach in ways that made him really want to throw up. What if he was hallucinating?

"I am sorry for your distress but you won't be hearing every animal in the forest, only animal-shifters if that is any reassurance."

Grey eyes narrowed as he continued to hear the voice in his head. The shock, although not gone in the least, had begun to settle and now Levi could only feel annoyance towards the large creature. The short male was amazed his screeching had not awakened Isabel and Furlan.

Levi froze at his thought. Isabel could sleep through a hurricane but Furlan was a pretty light sleeper and would have certainly checked up on him to ask who exactly he was talking to. In fact, Levi didn't hear much, just his light panting breaths that now seemed so awfully loud in the quiet forest. The natural sounds had all seemed muted somehow, the trees moved but gave no rustle as the wind blew lazily. The birds moved their throats as beaks opened to allow harmonic music flow but Levi couldn't hear it.

"What's going on?" Levi could still hear himself just fine, so his hearing wasn't the problem. A deep chuckle caught his attention and the sound of Erwin lifting himself from the ground and walking could be heard.

"You're in a noise cancellation dome or just dome if you prefer," said Erwin as icy blue eyes stared at the other male intensely. That was a feature that Levi had never noticed, despite the closeness of their meeting. Erwin's eyes made him uncomfortable yet, for a moment, Levi basked in their intensity before turning away. "Animal-shifters are able to create simple spells like these, domes allow the user and anything in a ten feet radius to be shrouded in an invisible shield that doesn't allow sound waves to enter or exit."

"So no one can hear us." It was more of a statement, a relived one at that, than a question. Levi would never be able to explain as to why he was talking to a wild animal.

"Sorry to give you such a fright though, I was just excited to see humans in the forest…if you'd like I could show you the way to Rose Fall, it is very pretty this time of year."

Levi stared at the buck once more. To think he woke up thinking was going to have a normal morning. However, God had decided to throw a big "Fuck You" on him. He should probably start preaching. Despite how uncertain and queasy he felt, Levi agreed and, almost in the blink of an eye, Erwin disappeared.

Startled, Levi looked around him and noticed he could hear the birds chirping, the trees swaying and the rustling of a tent flap. Turning towards the direction of the tents, Levi noticed a blond head peeking its way from the entrance of the tent before tumbling out completely onto the ground, dazed with sleep. A groan could be heard as Furlan got to his feet and stretched his arms above his head, giving a loud yawn before blinking hard at Levi a couple of times.

"Wow, up early as always, what's for breakfast?"

And just like that, Levi's morning started.