#I was busy having Shaka swoon over Lynn with her bow and surly manner like a normal person

[acertainmoshke]

WIP Intro: Future Not Found (Cold Iron #4)

Ok obviously that’s a joke title, I don’t have a real one yet. I would use it but it doesn’t have the same intensity as the others. But maybe I will anyway. We'll see.

So. The year is 2028 and Shaka is 112 (34), Kris is 112 (47), Aaron is 45 (20), and Cassie is 112 (10). She loves living in the modern world, wearing cartoon t-shirts and bouncing on the bed and eating lots of smoothies and fries. She sometimes makes friends with local kids, but they eventually get older and then the family moves again. They have a real apartment now, though Shaka had to glamour the landlord since none of them have legal identities. Well, Shaka does but no one would believe them.

Their life is quiet except moving every 3-4 years. They were in the last place for longer than usual because of the pandemic, but they just moved again and Cassie and Aaron are busy making new friends. There's a new attitude towards changelings, a sort of idea that they are fantasy novels come to life. They're romanticized and fetishized, but it sure beats being treated like a monster everywhere you go. Well, there is still some of that too, some hypocrisy surrounding the idea that unearthly beings are fun to imagine but unpredictable and gross in real life.

Also, they don't fight anymore. Like Althea, they are officially retired. Which makes it particularly ironic one winter day when without warning Althea knocks on their door and explains there's a desperate situation in which they need to fight. They suspect a danger like they've never seen before from the Fae, far more organized and targeted. It's a threat the VG knows they aren't equipped to handle on their own. They're calling in all the little rogue groups that they usually chastise for trying to fight in an unofficial capacity. And Althea thought Shaka might be necessary, too. Any changeling willing to help is.

So the family is off on one more road trip to save the world, full of shenanigans and thinking the threat is something entirely different from the truth. There are unexpected allies and, for the first time in Shaka's life, a flicker of romance. It can't be a good idea, though, and they're far too old to find kissing as the world burns romantic. But part of them isn't ready to succeed, save everything, and go their separate ways.