Page 70 of Finn's Solace

I snorted, then shot him a sideways glance. "Well, your dad tried to give me sex advice. Is that oversharing?"

Finn groaned, and I laughed, swinging our hands between us. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about this, but I hadn't been able to stop thinking about it ever since Finn told me he didn't shift often.

I didn't have a second form, but I'd gotten to know a lot of people who did, and they all said the same thing: shifting forms was important to them, for their physicalandmental health. Maybe the reason Finn's basilisk side was so separate from him in his mind was because he hadn't spent enough time in that form.

I knew there was more to his reluctance to shift than the lack of safe places to shift in, but I was hoping this would help, or at least lead me to those other reasons so I could figure out how to help with them. I'd done my best to make this space safe for Finn and everyone else, and I hoped it would make him feel secure enough to shift.

"We're here," I said, stopping at the tree I'd been using as a marker.

Finn glanced around, his lips pursed thoughtfully as he tried to figure out what exactly we were here to do.

"I'm confused," he admitted, and I turned to face him, pulling him closer by his hips.

"Do you trust me?" I asked, and he blinked.

"Of course."

I nodded, then pressed my palm against the tree. In the middle of its large trunk, a portal opened up. I'd helped Rhiannon anchor it to the tree so I could activate it without her presence, and mixing our magics had been a lot of fun. I might look into doing that more later.

"What the..." Finn trailed off as the portal grew large enough for us to fit through if we were crawling, like climbing into a ventilation shaft.

"Come on," I said, then climbed through the portal first, landing on my feet since I knew what was on the other side, and had a few weeks of practice.

Finn didn't hesitate to follow me, but since he had no idea what was on the other side, he landed right on top of me. I caught him as we fell, and made the ground 'catch us' before we fell to avoid either of us getting hurt.

Finn stood up, then offered me a hand, levering me up. Dusting off his pants, he glanced around.

We were underground, far enough below the surface that the tunnels I'd created by convincing the earth to make space wouldn't cause any structural damages or cause harm to any trees aboveground. It had taken me a few days to get the depth right, and after that, I'd spent every day convincing the land to make these tunnels.

"Levi, what is this?" Finn asked, though his voice told me he had an inkling.

"You told me you didn't have any safe space to shift, so I made you one."

Finn shook his head, his eyes scanning the tunnel we were in. It went straight as far as we could see, but after that it turned and split into a few tunnels that all looped and joined each other until it was an infinite race course that started and ended where we stood.

"How big is it?"

"I wasn't sure how long you were, so I made it a couple of miles long, but it loops around, so it can be as long as you want it to be."

"When did you even make this?" he demanded, and I told him how I'd gotten permission from Raiden and then gotten off early every day since to work on it.

"This is..." Finn shook his head, clearly lost for words.

"Come on, shift. We can stay here for as long as you want."

"I don't know how well I can control that side of me. What if I hurt you?"

I pointed at the portal, already having thought of that. Not that he might hurt me, but that he might worry about doing it.

"You won't fit through the portal in your other form. If you try to come after me, I'll just slip through and wait for you to calm down."

Finn nodded slowly, clearly liking this plan, then took a deep breath.

"Stay here."

I watched as he walked almost all the way to the split in the tunnel, then closed his eyes. His form flickered, and then a wonderfully large basilisk was in his place. Like dragons, he could shift without shredding his clothes. I wouldn't have minded if he had, though. A naked Finn ranked in my top five Finns, after all.

He looked like basilisks did in books, and yet not. He was a larger snake, his skin a pale gray like a lizard's, and his eyes that familiar yellow and like a snake's. But he also had shiny, gold horns that stuck out of his forehead and curved backward, and big, floppy-looking ears, kinda like an elephant's. His nostrils were wide as he stared at me, his head arched above the rest of his body to peer back at me since he'd been facing toward the rest of the tunnel. He had to be at least a hundred feet long, which explained why he couldn't shift just anywhere.

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