I’m very 👀 about the version of King Arthur that lives in your head which you mentioned in the tags of that post about living weapons. Would you mind elaborating on that take on the legend?
i mostly think this about the "and future" part of king arthur, and specifically in an urban fantasy setting where people Know the king will/has returned. How many leaders claim they are the reincarnated king arthur? how many actually think theyre arthur vs how many are just using the myth to further themselves? and the living weapon thought comes into play with the question "how are they treating their children?"
An Arthur claimant has two children, a son and a daughter. "Its alright," he thinks to himself, "as long as I know where Modred is I will be fine, and I can always kill him young." A slightly more progressive claimant thinks "Okay, but which one is Mordred?" And he raises his children in that state of blind arrogance. How isolating would it be to be raised with the assumption one day you will kill your father? and if you excel at fighting, if you intuit older languages, if you show signs of being slightly better, if people start to whisper that you are Arthur and not your father...
And what about the child that gets sent away from [insert modern city here], or is entered into the foster system, or was simply raised by a single parent? They go back to modern!Camelot with the expectation of a family, of a place for them, and good work to do, only to return to the assumption they are here to kill their father? To return to a good king, who they do not want to kill, or to return to a bad king, who they must kill?
and if the actual arthur remembers they are King Arthur, what kind of resentment would grow in their heart as they watch men, who are poor men and worse kings, claim to be arthur? As they walk through the slums and ruins of modernity, they think to themselves "None of the claimants are trying to stop this or fix this. What do they think I did? What legacy of mine are they trying to emulate?" And the burden of the myth itself, of the tellings and retellings of it, the expectation of King Arthur of Camelot-- and for Christianity to have changed as well!
So Arthur in my head exists solely as a weapon. They have no family that loves them and no place to turn to once their father finally fears them enough to kill them, they emerge into a different world. Its the same city-- but no one knows who they are. People still flinch when Arthur come near, but everyone flinches these days. Arthur start to make connections. Other people on the street help them find soup kitchens and food pantries. Arthur starts to make friends. Other people help them realize what their father did to them wasn't right. Arthur start to look at the city. Other people talk about the old days and the new days and how the City should be run. About lifting people up and bringing back the city council. About homes and clean water and food on the table. Arthur starts to think about being King.
