Etan - rider of Brown Utainth - See also the Protectorate page

Tall and slender, over 6'3" tall and built lightly for it. He is pale and rarely found in the sun. His hair is vibrantly blond and usually cut short to his neck and styled well. He has pale beautiful blue eyes, but they are fairly cold when they look at you. He has a light, slightly sinister voice, and a handsome sharp face.

E'tan was born many turns away from his impression date, many turns from everything, in fact. He is a very strong telepath, and few of the people he doesn't call friend know this fact.

E'tan is dangrous. He is not insane, like some people around the Protectorate, but he is definitely NOT a remarkably 'good' person. Why would anyone say things about him? He's a handsome, healthy man. He has a handsome, healthy brown dragon to ride!

He is beyond a doubt, trying to take over the world piece by piece. By aquiring certain people, removing them from their normal place and their right time in the history of the world, E'tan has gathered together a serious group of power hungry people to back him up.

So when he flies into battle against his enemies, be warned. Nothing will stand in their way.

How can Shard call this man friend?

How can Triia be the willing, loving mother of his child?? They both know that he has motives beyond what he admits to them. Even in private, even in their shared den Triia only glimpses the true E'tan. Shard perhaps has seen more of a trusting side to him, and willingly gives his riders, his time and perhaps his life for this man's cause.

How?

E'tan can control minds. A pinnacle of breeding and unsurpassed genetic manipulation, E'tan has never felt any compulsion to be kind to the human race, on earth or elsewhere. With a dragon beneath him, a dragon who believes in his cause whole-heartedly, E'tan is virtually unstoppable.

Almost.

Some moments, spent shared with his lover or his best friends... E'tan may think twice. He may decide to involve someone who he hadn't considered, before. Rue and Shard did not meet by accident, let's say that much.

And he must make up for the lack of attention he devoted to one particular, very poorly placed, child. E'tan drifts through time at random, assembling himself his army of riders and crafters. In doing this, he has essentially become detached from normal reality. He truly doesn't remember where he was from, or when. But he does know this:
His grandson is more a danger to his own self and plots than any concerted efforts against them.

As to who his grandson is... Well, he hasn't said to anyone but Rue. And unfortunately, he has erased the memory she had of that particular event.

It is E'tan who speaks through Between to people, coersing the dead to come back to life for him. So many thought lost forever from fighting damage or from grief have found themselves awake, healthy, and perhaps even without any memories of their prior experiences. In ways, E'tan's healer's upbringing helps him maintain his humanity.

Barely.

His most recent son, Tandri, is standing on the sands at the Healing Den, for a most unusual clutch. E'tan is very proud of his son, though he has only truly met him three times. Not there at the time of his birth, and not present at most other significant times, E'tan and his son know that some day, they will be found together.

Perhaps at the end of time, they will not be on the same side. And E'tan knows that his son is one of the few people who can actually ignore his mental nudging. His daughter with Mirage of Paveh, Siren, as well, is such a wonder of breeding. E'tan does not dare try crossing Mirage and her brood, for he values their lessons and their lives. Yet they will oppose him, should they ever find out where and when he is.

A mystery man... And he wants to keep himself a mystery. So ... you will forget reading these words. You must. For E'tan wills it.

Utainth is a smallish brown, but a sturdy one. Very long in length, and with long slender wings, but is not *big* at all. Canny as dragons go, Utainth has been altered significantly by the efforts of his rider, to make him smarter than ever, and keep his memory intact. Those experiments have been successful, and have proven to E'tan that his competitior's work on Vanya are too close for comfort. As a dragon goes, Utainth can keep track of times and places almost like a computer, storing information on each locale and every season, gliding flawlessly between as if he has never done anything but.
Time has passed. A lot of time, for E'tan and Utainth. Not so much for other parts of the Protectorate. Enough, however, that new... issues... have arisen. Tandri impressed blue Khaavreth - offspring of Shard's Jeremoth of all things. And while they did share a few weeks worth of time together in any given ... well, decade, Tandri never truly trusted his sire. Because of course: Etan never allowed him to. He never had a hand in raising the young child, the teenager, the new rider, the experienced scout. Tandri was his own person long before Etan could have expected him to be. Small consolation, that Triia and Shard usually mentioned that it was likely 'because of his father'. But if Etan felt anything more than a momentary flash of remorse, no one could tell. Certainly not his still-small but still-terrifying legion of followers. They remain loyal not because he wills it, but because they are so much like him.

Etan has certainly met up with 'himself' in numerous incarnations, and spends most of his time scheming with his Zekiran counterpart. After all, they can get far more spying and mind-wiping done together as a team - plus, with a dragon, he is able to make sure that they don't lose any other subjects.

But this dragon of his, Utainth, sire of quite a few small to mid-sized, high-ranking dragons across the Protectorate... He was old, and tired. No matter how much work could be done with chemical and psionic treatments, the dragon was still an Old World born beast. Over time, and through time, Utainth's body had begun to break down. Though they were never Thread-fighters, the many wounds on his brown mottled hide started to add up. Some were indeed from Thread. Others from massive animal attacks, a few from angry bronzes during flights. Some were from plasma weapons and spears alike, mechanical and magical threats, frostbite and acid from exotic dragons breath. He was blind now, not merely on the one side, but with yellowed crust formed over his remaining good eye. He was growing forgetful, which was the one thing Etan could not tolerate.

Along with the deterioration of his dragon, however, that threat to Etan's plans dared make his way into the Protectorate itself! Though not the only threat - after all, those on Zekiran soil reviled him enough to dedicate an entire bloodline of guards against him - this one in particular seemed to know things about him, all of him.

Knowing that there were more than just this one, for instance. Knowing where exactly that Zekiran rogue Peridian was at all times, another. Calling himself Keenan Lane, Kallah-Vahh in any dimension was proving to be a deep thorn in his side. At that fateful meeting of the leadership of the Protectorate, Etan wasn't exactly sure why he had been summoned for it. After all, the rest of them eagerly allowed the Convocation bastard in; his was the only dissenting voice, shouted down with pouting lips and pityable sad eyes from Triia. She'd betrayed his trust many times. And Vahh had been there too, though he didn't specifically blame him for that incident on Zekira. She was still putty in his hands there, for a good two centuries after he came on the scene. That clone of hers, siding with him, though, that galled Etan quite a bit. She'd been grown on his Hold. She belonged to him.

But that was not this particular incarnation's problem just at the moment. What was, was that his dragon was about ready to give up and head between for the last time. And he needed a replacement.