Arthur Pendragon
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Name: Arthur Pendragon (Caledon Ezhno)
Player: R
Journal: rexque-futurus
Original Canon: Merlin (bbc)
Age: 27
Race: Started out Human, a blend of many different things now primarily Human, Dragon, and Fae. His genetic code probably looks all kinds of messed up under a microscope. Appears Human. Identifies as Human.

Job: Server at a hole in the wall pub

Housing: Studio apartment near the art district

Physical Description: Arthur is approximately 5’10” and 165 lbs of solid muscle from both combat training since he was old enough to hold his head up and the actual fighting of things. He has slightly shaggy blonde hair and blue eyes that can equally warm one’s soul and cut it apart sharper than any blade, dragon forged or not. He walks straight and proud and tall. Even when he’s pretending to be “just some guy”, there’s no taking the nobility out of his bearing. Though he is often stern and serious these days, when he smiles it is like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

Abilities: The first time he lived, Arthur was just a man with a great destiny. Now that he's back, Arthur is not just anything. A soul spending so much time in Avalon waiting for the world to be in need of (or ready for depending on the one asking and answering) tends to build up power after a while. And so, when Arthur was reborn, he had more magic in him than he ever thought he would, and this time he could use it as opposed to it just being the vehicle through which he first drew breath.

Arthur is a fire mage. Or a pyromancer. Or an elemental. Or a mutant. Whatever you'd like to call him, he is exactly what he was afraid of the first time he lived. He can call up flame and just as easily extinguish it. He can manipulate it into art or simply lay things to waste around him. Heat and flame do not hurt him.

Even before he knew he was Arthur, he could do this. But he kept hit quiet, hidden, not knowing that the literal truth was that he had a dragon's blood in him once and dragons only get stronger with time.

Caledon was ashamed of these skills. Arthur is afraid of them even though they are a part of him.

Awakening

At his point of entry into game canon, Arthur has no idea he is Arthur. He knows himself to be Caledon Ezhno, or really just Cal. One of the lucky weirdos who can usually hide his weirdness. At least he's not blue, right? He works at a shop, nothing exciting, under the radar enough that no one notices. He thought maybe he'd be a fireman once, but decided against that since it'd be really obvious that he was more than he appeared.

As Arthur wakes up, Cal's memories fall away. They're not important, you see. Cal was just the container for Arthur and the King is what matters to those who assign those sorts of things. He was never meant to keep a normal life for long. The manner in which Arthur remembers could happen different ways, but know that PCs and NPCs who met or knew Cal before Arthur knew himself will likely find themselves forgotten at some point when they meet Arthur until he makes new memories with them.

While Arthur remembers, on a metaphysical level, he will smell and taste and feel more like Avalon. To those sensitive to such things, feel free to notice it. It's already true of Cal, but given Arthur's time resting in Avalon, it will only get more intense as he comes to the fore. Arthur is Chosen by so many gods of so many religions he can't keep track and never bothered to declare himself for any of them. He is the True King of the Christian god, the Uniter and Maker for the old gods of Albion. He is Athena's chosen warrior, claimed the way few mortals are anymore.

For those who can see into others' dreams, Arthur's are dark and deadly. Dreams of fire and of blood. Sometimes he is a dragon and sometimes he is just naked and letting the flames consume him. Very rarely, he dreams of things as they were when he lived the first time, even when he remembers who he is, this will still be the case. He'll dream of Merlin's eyes, of Gwen's laugh, of his knight's loyalty and his sister's cruel smile, but never much more coherent than that, though if there is, those would be dreams of battles long ago fought and outcomes that matter little with the world as it is now. Of a sea of Pendragon crimson, embroidered golden dragons, a horse carrying him forward, armor an unnoticed weight on his body, and a sword only he was ever meant to wield. Of all the dreams Arthur has, those are the ones he hates the most.

Background & Personality

Arthur Pendragon was the greatest king the western world ever knew. His was a story that made it off of Old Earth, and though it's become muddled over the years and some details lost while new ones were made up (as is always the case), it is still there in the folklore of the world. Somewhere.

He was king. Then he died.

There isn't much sense of time in Avalon. It's peaceful, calm. A place to rest and gather oneself. It was nice for a while, but then, well then Arthur frankly got bored. He blinked and three centuries had passed and there was still a lot missing. His knights were not with him, though he'd been told that as they fell, they were taken care of, safe, but not deemed worthy of Avalon. He'd rebelled against that too, but no one listened. He asked about Gwen, and understood even if he didn't like it why they said she couldn't come either. And Merlin.

When he asked about Merlin, all they would tell him was that 'The Emrys lives yet. This is not a place for the living.'

He contented himself with The Lady, Freya. Merlin's friend. Sometimes she was a great, calm beast with him and others just the frail druid girl he vaguely remembered hearing about.

Time passed. He slept.

He opened his eyes again and was, as he did every decade or so without fail, demanding to go back. To do something. Anything.

The Emrys lives yet.

They ignored his desperation.

Finally, when it felt like he'd been there an eternity all on his own, when the mists and gates of Avalon settled around a whole new world, they gave him an answer.

If he forgot himself, he could go back. If he started over from the beginning, he would, eventually, remember. There would be no guarantee that he would be able to find Merlin amongst all those people and all those stars, but he was welcome to try.

When Arthur spoke not to the Great Dragon who had lived beneath the castle, but to the other, smaller deep red one whose blood had been used in the spell to allow his mother to bear him, it was with the same quiet respect with which they always seemed to regard each other. This beast was only one of many who died so Arthur could live. He was kin in a way it felt like neither Morgana or Uther had ever truly been. Not this far removed from everything.

The dragon reminded him of his sword, the dual sides. Take me up. Cast me away.

"The world is ready," the dragon said. "The choice is yours."

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In the end, Arthur was foolishly stubborn as always, absolutely certain that he would find Merlin and set to rights whatever it was that had gone wrong in his friend to change 'The Emrys lives yet' to 'The Emrys lives and will not join you here.' He didn't know. He wasn't allowed to see.

So Arthur was reborn, his memories locked away inside him in a brand new born body. They would stay there until not the world was ready, but Arthur was.

Caledon Ezhno killed his father.

He didn't mean to.

Nobody believes when he says he did anyway.

His father had been wealthy, kept them comfortable. He was almost always either off planet or Elsewhere on business, but once or twice a year, he might come 'round.

Cal, well, he was only a small boy. Albeit one with big powers. It was Christmas and Cal was sleeping on the couch, waiting for morning when he could open his presents and eat sweets all day and make up stories with mum. He didn't know the noise was his father. Honestly, he hadn't actually seen the man in so long he didn't know that was him at all. There was just a dark shadow bending over by the tree and Cal panicked. The tree went up in flames. Cal panicked more. He remembers his father yelling for his mother to get the boy. Save him.

Somehow she either woke or was already awake fast enough to grab him, though neither of them knew that the flames wouldn't have harmed a hair on Cal's body. One doesn't fight a dragon with fire.

The only image of his father that Caledon can remember is of half his face charred off, screaming for his mother.

After that, Cal went through a lot of therapy. When his powers started triggering through stress dreams while he slept (though never near so bad as the tree since Cal woke up and had learned how to control the flames once they were there, to make them go away), people assumed that he was setting them on purpose. So he went through more therapy.

Eventually, he learned how control it entirely through a combination of skill and essentially fireproofing everything he could. He didn't talk about it. He kept his head down and his eyes averted.

When people wondered how it was he never got sick, he didn't tell them that it was because his blood ran literally so hot that an infection couldn't survive in his system. He just smiled and said he took his vitamins.

He did drama at university. Not acting, but backstage. He found he was rather good at building sets, and had a natural talent for helping people do fight choreography and, of course, pyrotechnics.

After his father's death, he and his mother lived well for a while. Then Cal turned 18, and just his mother lived well. Not, of course, because of any provisions in anything, but because Cal couldn't bring himself to take the monetary support of a man he killed anymore. It didn't feel Right. If he was old enough to legally be an adult, then he was old enough to learn to live like one.

When uni was done some few years later, Cal was deep in debt, and none of the places in his small hometown wanted to hire him. They all knew about the fire, and even though he'd 'grown out of it' and was 'just a boy at the time you know how boys are' nobody wanted to take the risk. After all, if he'd started fires once upon a time, who was to say he'd stopped now. That was when a friend came through. His brother had opened up a pub in Kin and needed staff, the more Authentically British he could get, the better. Kistchy themed shit. Cal took it, moved to Kin and lived even rougher than he did back home.

His flat isn't much of anything. There's a mattress on the floor, a few bits of metal furniture, utensils and cookware and the like enough for one person. It's at the top of a seven story walk-up because the lift's perpetually out, and after getting so frustrated and worried that he accidentally melted and warped his key, now Cal can only get in and out of his flat through the fire escape window. He can barely afford rent. He doesn't want the fine for having to get a new lock put in.

At work, Cal usually cooks, though he serves if he's needed. He'll always tip out far less for himself, pick up or switch or drop shifts as other people say they need the hours or they need the time off. They need it more. They have families and school and whole lives ahead of them.

Cal has a makeshift metal box, and enough understanding of himself to know that disposable income will just be a firehazard. He is kind, though, and loyal, and much more likely to take a beating than to give one himself. He will stand up for the little guy and if it wouldn't throw up flags, he'd probably donate blood too, maybe volunteer as a firefighter or something. It would. He doesn't.

Though he is sometimes brave and bold, most of the time, far far more than not, when it comes to himself, Caledon is afraid.

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