#zevème

[cadere-art]

Ismérie Thimerais and her servant, aide, and closest friend Sifflante-l'herbe-sous-le-pas-du-chien (Whistling-the-grass-under-the-dog's-step) or Chfwé for short.

Ismérie is a zevème physicist working at the University of Saint-Loegaire. Ismérie is albino and legally blind: though she can see colors and shapes, she has no depth perception and her vision is extremely blurred, enabling her to read large text at a short distance but being of otherwise little help.

When Ismérie was a child, her parents, well-meaning but ultimately products of their time, bought a yetsié child to serve as a companion and aide to their disabled daughter, thinking the yetsié little more than talking animals. As years passed, they began to realize their error and eventually freed Chfwé, who chose to remain part of the Thimerais household as a paid servant.

Because of her disability, Ismérie was not pushed to marry and was allowed to pursue her ambition of becoming a scientist. With Chfwé's help, she became a doctor of physics at the University of Saint-Loegaire. The Thimerais, long-time donators to the University, fought tooth and nail for Chfwé to graduate alongside Ismérie. They now conducts research as part of an all-women's team including themselves and two others, exploring the potentials of electricity.

Chfwé is an approximation of how part of Whistling-the-grass-under-the-dog's-step sounds, approximating "grass" specifically. Whistling-the-grass does not, counter intuitively, refer to her voice: it is an auditory metaphor for dry, brown grass in a late autumn or winter when the winds beat the fields, and refers to the colour of her coat. Under-the-dog's-step is less flattering and implies that she herself is the dog: it references the truly inordinate amount of time that Chfwé spends on the ground.

[angelicuscadere]

My characters Chfwé and Ismérie Thimerais.

Ismérie is albino and nearly blind (as a lot of albinos are), so she needs a guide and a helper in everyday life. The society in which she lives uses slaves, whom often (but not always) are Xietsiè, mostly because of their physical strenght and lack of complex societies.

Chfwé has been her slave ever since they were both children and they've grown to be friends and partners. As Ismérie's sight doesn't allow her to read on a blackboard, Chfwé followed her to every single class and took all her notes for her. As a result, Chfwé because the first female Xietsiè slave to complete a doctorate in the country.

Ismérie is a genius: she composes mathematical and physical theories in her head and hardly ever needs to write anything before she's done. However, everytime she writes down her ideas, she always goes to Chfwé to correct them. Although Chfwé is unable to think up those theories, she can understand them very quickly and has a talent to find any mistakes or pratical fault that might have slipped in. 

As a result, they are an impressive pair of brains.