Francesco is lucky, all things considered, but just how lucky, he doesn't seem to comprehend. For all intents and purposes, the wolf looks like an average halfling; of middling stature with a more lithe build that brings to mind fleet-footed deer, there is nothing particularly odd or off about him. Like many halflings, he possesses a coloration at least in the same palette as his patron animal, with antlers plucked straight from a young buck's head to boot. The young male's pelt is a soft wheaten gold brushed with the barest peach overtones. Along his underside, the colors cool to a dusky cream while his face darkens to a slightly more visible peach. Most of his muzzle has been dipped in a medium brown hue, with the shade trailing a little ways up the bridge of his nose. Likewise, his three quarters of his tail is darkened by this brown color. His tail gradually lightens until the brown has gently melded back into the warm peachy gold. Beneath ivory antlers rest lilac eyes which seem curiously puzzled and distinctly let down by the world.

From a distance, it would be an easy mistake to take Connie at face value and assume his gender to be female. There is a softness to him, warm and inviting, naively altruistic at worst and kindly at best, that is only accentuated by his peachy coloration and the small tree growing across his back. The flowering cherry is small, perhaps twenty inches tall and twice that long, with low, sweeping branches that splay out over Constance's back. While it blooms throughout mid-spring to early summer, the summer generally sees it with mostly foliage and a few blossoms. As a deciduous tree, it sheds its leaves in fall, much the same as its bearer sheds his antlers during late winter, and is barren until the next spring. When Constance sheds his antlers, he is left with two semi-flat pedicles from which his next pair of antlers will grow, although they are often mostly obscured by fur.

Pretty boy Constance has had his fair share of experience with life, but life doesn't seem to have quite gotten through to his reasoning. Naive, almost to the extreme, he expects the best of everyone and seems ready and willing to believe anything that comes out of another wolf's mouth. Much as he knows there are terrors out in the world, he is easily swayed by honeyed words and can quickly be persuaded to follow whatever trick, gimmick, or lie another wolf produces. He becomes more suspicious every day, but that doesn't say much for a wolf who would readily accept that "gullible" is written on the ceiling.

Why anyone would want to deceive him, however, is beyond reasoning. Constance is readily giving and eagerly altruistic, stripping himself of possessions and health at the whim of others. There is a deep desire to please in him, beyond that instilled by a righteous upbringing, and there is almost nothing Francesco would not do in order to help another wolf. Despite the fact that he is kindly by nature, a jaded outlook can overtake him on a basis more routine that the male is comfortable with admitting. He has been taken advantage of more times than he can count and come close to or received bodily harm at least a dozen of those moments. If he truly is one of his God's chosen ones, then why, he wonders, is he not protected from such savagery? Despite his doubt, he presses onward with the diligence of a tin soldier and a zeal that seems halfhearted only half the time.

Doubt and disbelief plague Constance like a disease. Every day, he struggles to reconcile the hurts of the past and everyday atrocities with the benevolent benefactor he has learned to love and worship. The kindly Father would not have allowed those deaths that wounded Connie and the monastery so grievously, but their tombs still stand and Constance still mourns. His sheltered upbringing has left Francesco without the understanding that life is cruel and that no God or Goddess will ever protect their worshipers from death, destruction, and inevitable ruin.

Francesco is not a halfling, nor is he a changeling. He is not anything which his parents have claimed him to be, and he is most certainly not the well-bred choir boy the monastery thought they were letting in. But, back to the first point: Constance is a halfling of a different breed entirely. His mother, in a fit of rebellion against her parents, took up with a Casanova male by the name of Aquila. Needless to say, it struck both of his parents dumb when they found themselves immediately taken by the other. Aquila was a changeling and his mother a halfling; normally, their courtship would have immediately been halted and distaste expressed for the unfortunate attraction they shared. Instead, Aquila's markings were claimed to be founded within species of poisonous frogs and, with a little convincing, Maryam's family welcomed their "halfling" son-in-law into the fold.

To an extent, Constance's parents weren't lying so much as using a different definition of the term "halfling". Their son knows, of course, but he has been taught that he is a common phenomenon, but that speaking of birth status is impolite and immodest. It goes unmentioned, for the most part, and no one questions the young man when he happily answers his lineage to be halfling. This little white lie was good enough for the parents of a young Lorelei, to whom Constance was arranged to marry from an early age. They played together as children and became friends, if not lovers, though Constance's fear and anxiety became greater every month. Eventually, his fear of commitment, of being tied down and forced to play the role of father when he himself still wanted to travel and explore and help others, became to great and he fled, seeking refuge and solace in the secluded monastery a dozen miles from his home.

There, he was turned into a man of God and, blessedly, was content with his life. He had never expected their quiet sanctuary to be invaded - would not their God protect them? - and neither he nor the monks were prepared for the bandits' attack. Connie fled, blood from his slain mentors spattered across his chest, but he could not flee his guilt nor his doubt nor his undeniable bitterness towards a god who had forsaken them in their hour of need.