Member of Duchess Saturday's Musketeers
Full Title: Captain in the 7th Regiment of the Duchess Saturday's Musketeers (Retired)
Occupation: Shopowner, horse-breeder
Nationality: Genuan expatriate
Citizenship: Ankh-Morpork
Human
Dark locks of hair form a striking contrast with the smooth pale skin and clear grey eyes of this young man. His features have a sharply delicate sensitivity to them that could be called feminine, were it not for the decidedly masculine definition of his jawline. There is a straightness to his posture that is almost military, and the easy, unthinkingly fluidity that marks his movement suggest intensive training as either a dancer or a swordsman. Impeccably groomed, his choice in clothing tends to be for for fine fabric cut in an unornamented, flowing style. He seems to have a marked preference for deep shades of blues, sea-greens and rich charcoal grey.
Wolf
Luxuriously thick pewter-coloured fur covers this wolf, shaded slightly darker around his ears, muzzle and saddle, and faintly lighter at the tips around his haunches and the ruff of his neck. Beneath that rich grey mantle, a frame broader at the shoulders than most dogs, solid with lean muscle that looks neither gaunt nor overfed. His bearing is generally one of relaxed confidence, his ears held forward and alert, tail at a comfortable angle, and the clear grey eyes hold an intelligence that's far too thinking to be solely lupine.
Yvain was shuffled off to military training at the earliest possible age by his would-be-socialite mother, for whom a child was more of an inconvenience than a responsibility. Like most children, he adapted quickly and with fairly little thought to his surroundings. Once he became of age, he was accepted as a recruit into the musketeers.
Unlike many of the others in his regiment, Yvain did not view the social expectations of being a musketeer (women, wine, and more women) as being a perk of the job. His reluctance in both aspects were viewed with some suspicion by his peers, and was certainly augmented by his relatively quiet nature and interest in music and crafts. After some deliberation, it was decided by his Captain that the best place for him was out of Genua, lest his unusual reluctance in the field of romance lead to some future scandal in the (mostly male) regiment.
He has completed his obligations to the regiment, and retired from active duty. He maintains correspondence with some of the last men he served with, but takes little interest in Genuan politics or military life past that.
He is currently living with and engaged to Susannetta.
Known to Yvain:
Mom got pregnant out of wedlock and went off to Uberwald, where she had him. She has told him that his father was a musketeer, largely to encourage an interest in him becoming one as well and therefore becoming the responsibility of the Tacticus Academy (and leaving her free to marry after passing off her son as an adopted nephew). Recent developments have revealed to him that this may be a falsehood, as he has discovered that he has lycanthropic blood.
Unknown to Yvain:
His father was not a musketeer, but rather belonged to a tribe of nomadic werewolves known as the Ruvensa. Insular and more than a little xenophobic, it's a custom among them to send out the young males of the pack to experience life as both wolves and humans, on the theory that those who return will do so ready to fully embrace their heritage, and that those who don't are best lost since they'd only try to influence the pack to Change anyhow. Disliked and distrusted by most of the more territorial packs in Uberwald, they tend to make their living as entertainers and traders in between being chased and hunted out of areas they try to settle in.
Regardless, Yvain's father made his way to Genua, well-dressed and with an unthinkingly beauty and confidence that made his mother assume that he was a rich foreign noble looking for a wife, and, being one of nature's social climbers, promptly seduced him. Girard, which was the common Genuan name his father had adopted, was quite delighted with the affair, without quite understanding that the woman he was spending time with had intentions that might not match his own. She managed to get pregnant, and informed him. His response was to flee back to Uberwald, as he (rightly) read her expectation of a proposal as the trap baited by the child in her womb.
She followed, and managed to catch up with him as he rejoined his people, who agreed with him that he had no obligation to the woman (after all, it's the woman's responsibility to prevent pregnancy when she's not after pups, and besides which, there was little way of proving it his). After nine months of tears, sulking, and the eventual bitter realisation that the rich noble she had seen was actually little more than a well-turned out pauper by her standards, she returned to Genua with the child and one of the older women of the tribe. This woman, his paternal grandmother, acted as nurse to Yvain until his fourth birthday when he was sent to the Academy by his mother. She returned to Uberwald, with a slight bit of sadness that the child had showed no signs of the Change, and therefore was unfit to acknowledge as her grandchild.
As he grew up, Yvain developed a strong resemblance to his father, which accounts in part to his mother's reluctance to be around him.