MY STORY

It’s the powerful people who write the histories.

Why?

So they can say what they want. So that they’ll be remembered as they want to be remembered. So that the story they want told becomes reality.

Whether that reality is real or a pile of horseshit.

Control the narrative. Control the legacy.

They do that, and they increase their power. And there’s nothing that powerful people like more than more power.

It’s a drug. Once given a taste, people want another taste. And another.

People don’t want anything else but that.

My father is one of them.

Power drives him.

Power is who he is.

Quite a lot has been written about him.

Libraries worth. And still more books appear. Every year. Hundreds. Maybe even thousands.

And not just histories. Academic tomes. Historical fiction. Epic fantasy. Urban fantasy. Mythological reworkings.

His story struck a chord.

In fact, he’s one of the most popular figures in history.

Some of what’s been written about him is justified. Much of it isn’t.

For that, all credit to the public relations firms that have molded his story into the history that he demanded. For helping to make him who he’s become.

And there’s the rub.

Most people don’t know that the story about my father was written by him. For him. So that he could do what he believed that he needed to do in our world.

At first, I understood. I saw the value of what he was doing. I believed what he told me instead of questioning him.

My father was a hero. Deservedly so. He earned that title.

At least some of the time.

When he was younger and he did what he thought was right rather than what he thought was necessary.

I remember when he was a hero. When he was my hero.

But then he changed.

I’ve seen him at his best and I’ve seen him at his worst.

I’ve seen what he’s done because he started to believe the story that he crafted.

I know what he wants to do.

I know the lengths that he’ll go to achieve it.

I even helped him for a time.

For much too long a time.

Yet as the years passed, and then the centuries, after he turned me into what I became -- what he wanted me to be -- and after I saw what he had become, I realized that he wasn’t always doing what he needed to do in the world. He was doing what he wanted to do to the world.

I almost didn’t realize the distinction between need and want before it was too late.

That’s why I decided that I needed to tell my story. An alternative history of sorts. A different perspective. My take.

Admittedly biased. Although not biased toward my father. Biased toward the truth. Or at least the truth as I know it. As I believe it.

No one likely will read it.

That’s all right.

It’s not the reading that matters to me so much as the writing.

Because at least what I put on these pages will be my story. Not the story that my father wanted to tell. The story that my father believes he needed to tell.

The story he wants to share is one based on a myth. Some of it true. Much of it lies.

My story is real.

Or at least as real as can be when you’re fitting together your own memories with the memories of those who were with you. When you’re striving for accuracy and fighting against bias with every keystroke.

So admittedly I offer you a history that’s skewed right from the start. But at least in my case anything that I recall incorrectly was done because of my poor memory rather than any desire to mislead or to craft a new and false narrative.

There was another reason as well for sharing my story. Or stories, I should say. Because I’ve lived through quite a few during my centuries.

One in particular that I wasn’t sure that I should share. But at this point, why not.

I’ve already talked about need and want and the distinction between the two.

I didn’t want to do it, but I knew that I had to.

I needed to kill my father before he killed me.

That’s why I wanted to tell my story.

I needed to tell you as much as I could before my father killed me.

So this is my story.

Who am I?

I’m Axel Draig.

And my father?

My father is Arthur Pendragon.

And how did all of this start?

With me already being dead.

I liked being dead.

I still would be dead, in fact, if not for the Witch who brought me back to life.