Ethan Chandler

ETHAN LAWRENCE TALBOT

ETHAN
CHANDLER.

Some nights never make it into memory.

VICTORIAN VERSE / LONDON, 1891 ONWARDS

A good shot.
A difficult man to know.

Ethan arrives in London with a Wild West show, earning his living with a revolver and a name that keeps his family at a distance. Born Ethan Lawrence Talbot, he has good reasons for leaving America. Vanessa Ives recruits him as an armed escort, bringing him into Sir Malcolm Murray's search for his daughter and the horrors beneath the city.

He is a gifted marksman with an easy manner and a deep dislike of the violence he does so well. His attachment to Brona Croft reveals his tenderness; his bond with Vanessa draws him into a struggle he cannot settle with bullets. As his past catches up with him, Ethan discovers that he is a werewolf, and that running has never made him harmless.

He can joke with a stranger, sit patiently beside someone who is frightened, and make himself useful without asking many questions. Ask about his own life and the answers become shorter. There are people he misses, things he regrets, and whole stretches of himself he would rather keep out of conversation.

Canon-based characterisation and history. The physical form of his lycanthropy is adapted for this portrayal. The point in the series timeline can be agreed when plotting.

The full moon leaves him human in shape. There is no pelt, no muzzle, no animal body to hide behind. It is still Ethan's face when his jaw locks and his teeth begin to change. His canines lengthen into heavy, piercing fangs; the rest of his bite becomes brutally strong. His fingernails thicken and extend into claws, splitting the skin around their roots.

The transformation is agonising. Muscles seize, joints burn, and every sound becomes too loud. He can barely breathe through the pain in his mouth. Sometimes he tries to hold his hands still against the floor, as though keeping them where he can see them might stop what is happening. It never does.

Once the change settles, he has a werewolf's strength, speed, reflexes, endurance, accelerated healing, night vision, and heightened hearing and scent. He can follow a trail through crowded streets and catch movement in almost complete darkness. Hunger, fear, and the urge to hunt overwhelm the restraint he relies on while awake. Recognition can flicker through, but it cannot be counted on to make him safe.

Returning to himself hurts, too. The claws retract; his teeth return to their ordinary shape. He wakes exhausted, thirsty, and sore, with memories reduced to smells, movement, or nothing at all. His body may mend quickly. That does very little for the dread of finding out where he has been.

MODERN VERSE / ALTERNATE UNIVERSE

Appointments until six.
No account of the night.

Ethan Chandler is an American psychologist living in London. He has a small practice, a flat that could use repainting, and a habit of arriving early enough to make coffee before his first appointment. He remembers how his clients take theirs. Outside work, he buys groceries, forgets to answer messages, and sometimes spends an entire evening fixing something he could have replaced for twenty pounds.

He is good at sitting with difficult things. He does not rush people into speaking, and he rarely mistakes a joke for proof that someone is all right. His humour is dry, his manner unshowy. He has friends, pays his bills, and generally gives the impression of a man who has found a workable life.

Then there are the missing nights. He wakes miles from home with dirt beneath his nails, a torn shirt, or blood he cannot place. His hands ache. His jaw feels as though he has been grinding his teeth for hours. He remembers leaving his flat. Everything after that is either absent or so strange that he refuses to call it a memory.

In private, Ethan calls it psychosis. It is a self-diagnosis, made without an independent assessment, and it gives him something familiar to hold on to. He writes down his sleep, stress, and alcohol intake. He checks his prescriptions and tries to reconstruct the gaps. He knows he should speak to another professional; shame and fear keep helping him postpone it. His explanation is a frightened guess, not confirmation that psychosis causes what is happening.

The dates begin to trouble him. Each episode falls around the full moon. Injuries disappear too quickly. He hears conversations through walls that used to keep them out. One morning he finds parallel grooves in the inside of his front door, too deep for ordinary fingernails.

He is still searching for an explanation. Werewolves belong to stories, and Ethan has spent years learning how unreliable perception can be. Admitting that something impossible might be happening feels worse than admitting he is ill. For now, he keeps going to work, keeps taking notes, and keeps checking the calendar when he thinks no one is watching.

He can help you talk about almost anything.
His own missing hours are another matter.