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Nanette always knew that she was the bastard child of her mother, Sylvia Courant, and some Lord or another from the Mourning Isles. Her mother travelled often, selling her services as an adequate painter of portraits, landscapes and animals like, with a preference for working with nobility. During one such commission, to her the woman tell it, a married Lord fell for her and in a careless moment of passion, they conceived a child. The Lord and Sylvia - the latter being sworn to Tyde - never got a chance to figure out what to do about the child they'd created, as the Rebellion came a short year after Nanette's birth and threw the young single mother's life into utter turmoil. As Thrax's navies approached Tyde Hall, Sylvia fled with her daughter. Sylvia was not a gentle mother. Raising Nanette alone, the painter attempted at every turn to work her daughter into the model of a Thraxian woman - reserved, demure, aware and accepting of her role in a world run by men. She only grew more callous and impatient as the years passed by, reprimanding the wayward child with words and cane alike. It was a constant, uphill battle, though mother and daughter did find a common interest in art - to an extent. Nanette had an eye for painting from a very young age, but whenever her mother tried to refine that talent, the young girl gravitated towards more morbid, less commercially viable subjects. A dead bird here, a few withering flowers there, a scarred old sailor over a wealthy noblewoman. This was not to say that her mother forced the trade on her daughter, far from it, Nanette took to it like a fish to water and adored every second that she had a brush in her hand - she simply didn't have the same tastes as Sylvia, who saw painting as a trade by which to make a living. There was little money to be made from sketches of carrion. Years went by, with Sylvia intending for Nanette to continue her trade - no more, no less - when her own eyes faded and her hands lost their grace. As luck would have it, however, another path called the young artist. With House Tyde formally reestablished and Tydehall University opening a few years later, a new direction opened itself to her. It took some convincing - there was arguing, shouting, tears - but eventually even the bitter old woman could see the merit of her daughter broadening her skills. Experience, worldly knowledge and a foot in the door in many subjects only helped make art blossom after all, and the connections she'd make should ingratiate her in the right circles; the ones who would pay good silver for good work. For a time, it seemed like Nanette's future had been firmly established - she'd study at the university and leave as an educated commoner with the knowledge and means to live out her days in moderate comfort. However, her path saw fit to twist yet again. Halfway through her education at the university, on her twenty-first birthday, Nanette was sought out by a servant who claimed to have worked for her father. The retainer had come to make good on a promise they made to the man long ago. A promise to give Nanette an old family heirloom, a signet ring, along with one of the last journal's he penned before his death - a journal proving her lineage and bloodline, and serving as a will wishing her legitimised as his child. Nanette had only just started to feel comfortable being a student, a scholar and an independent artist, but now the rug had been pulled from under her feet and she was expected to be so much more. The old servant, intent on making good on their promise, started to drill Nanette hard - teaching her the way of being not just a Thraxian woman, but a Thraxian Lady, while encouraging her strongly to finish her work at the university with more than just passing grades. It worked. Nanette graduated with distinction a few years later, and with her now-retainer's help, she managed to coax the University into sending Duchess Tyde a strong letter of recommendation. Now, Nanette has come to Arx in hopes of doing a good job as both a subject of House Tyde and a budding artist in the Capital, while simultaneously getting to know her father's side of the family. So far, she's kept his identity secret, having yet to declare herself as anything more than Mistress Nanette Courant. She knows it's not a secret she can hide for long, but until it is made public she's chosen to simply go with the flow.

A champagne head of straight hair comes to a point at the nape of Nanette's neck - feathersoft to the touch, the strands are fine and there's always a few stubborn fly-aways that shift in the breeze or with the slightest movement of the woman's head, giving her an almost ethereal, weightless look. She takes great care of the fringe that hangs like a thick-bristled brush across her forehead, casting shadows over her eyes and adding a youthful flair to the otherwise severe manner in which she carries and portrays herself. While her fawn-beige complexion is unblemished, Nanette does have prominent under-eye-circles, though only a small trace of them remain after she's applied a light touch of make-up. Her doll-like eyelashes are as black as crow feathers, framing her intense green gaze which is usually focused and agile when the woman is working, darting over her work be it at the easel or the desk; but when she meets the eyes of another there is a certain unwavering intensity and raw emotion that can be quite arresting - like a pair of jade whirlpools, they hold the gaze of the other person and dares them to blink or to look away first. Nanette often leaves a crisp, fresh smell in her wake, like the cold sharpness of an Autumn morning - the woman bathes often and enjoys both soaps and good perfume. However, the heady trace of oil paints never fully leaves her.

In many ways, Nanette is much like the portraits that she paints - on one hand, she is the finished product, a quiet beauty to be admired by others. On the other hand, she's the fiery, passionate and messy stages in between not-started and complete. There's the Scholar, the highly educated and ever-hungry mind of a near-perfect Thraxian woman. She is pragmatic woman who works tirelessly to fill her mind with knowledge to the point of near-obsession, though she would call herself focused. There is a quiet intensity about her at all times, like she's in a permanent state of holding something back. This would be the Artist. A woman of many passions and an unrelenting lust for life. Hedonistic and always on a quest for more. When let out, Nanette is prone to bursts of Artist's Fury, yet just as prone to flashing a toothy, youthful smile that takes over her whole face, complete with crinkled nose, pinched-shut eyes and raised cheeks. And she's the woman to whom, on her quest to get to know somebody fully, nothing is too immoral or off-limits. She will find the buttons she needs to push to see true despair, violent anger, unadulterated passion - and she will push them. While these two sides are deliberately kept separate, they are certainly not mutually exclusive, and Nanette's best work often comes when the two sides work in harmony.