The Chimera

Anna Arendelle is completely ordinary. She knows and admits it, not with false modesty but forthright honesty because she is, for all intents and purposes, common. She's good at some things and bad at others, but she's not great at anything and certainly never excellent. She's not ugly, pretty, even, despite freckles, but she's the sort of girl-next-door pretty that is a dime a dozen and not altogether memorable. In all things, she's distinctly average; but she's kinder than most, perhaps more optimistic.

Ellie Arendelle is one of many acquired savants. She is distilled perfection, and like her sister knows that she is ordinary, Ellie knows that she is special. She is a genius among geniuses, beloved by talent. She's not just good at everything she does, but she hardly needs to try to excel, to innovate. She's beautiful, too, not unassumingly so but captivating, Ledaean beyond Helen, black-haired and blue-eyed. There had never been one like her, and there never would be.

Anna is sure that their parents love Ellie more, because that makes sense.

Ellie is sure that their parents love Anna more, and she is right.

It's hard to love a creature of perfection.

"Anna," Ellie says, and Anna rolls her eyes at the authority in her tone. Ellie is not her parent, but when their parents are absent on business – when their parents are present, even – Ellie is her third guardian. There is a gulf between them much larger than the three years that separate them. "What's this about you and Kristoff Bjorgman?"

"It's nothing serious!" Anna says.

"He is beneath you."

"No, he's not."

"You are Arendelle," Ellie stresses.

Of course. They're wealthy, and more importantly, socially and politically powerful. But Anna notices, Ellie doesn't mention anything about the truthfulness of Anna's own statement. Ellie hadn't noticed.

"Even Mama and Papa say that our name doesn't make us better than other people."

"They are deluded," Ellie says, and that she's speaking of her own parents doesn't seem to faze her in the slightest. Her voice is clinical, with just a hint of acid. "They enjoy the benefits of their superiority but don't want to suffer the guilt. That's the only reason they say that."

"Look at you, so edgy."

Ellie pretends that Anna hadn't spoken. "Not to mention that Kristoff is a Common—"

"So am I," Anna says, and Ellie freezes, looks at her, really looks at her, like she's seeing her for the first time. Anna feels tears stinging in her eyes, but she refuses to let them fall. She had seen this coming.

Kristoff, like Anna, is a Common. Ellie and a very small, very privileged percentage of people are Savants—acquired savants, whose genetic traits had been selected prior to birth to be superior to their lesser kin, the Commons. Like Anna. She is on equal ground with Kristoff. It is an immutable fact that she is inferior to people like Ellie.

"Anna—" Ellie shakes her head. "I only want the best for you."

"No, you judge everyone by your standards. You think you're better than everyone!"

Better than me.

"Because I am."

Ellie blinks after the words leave her mouth, and she rises halfway from her seat.

Anna leaves before she can finish.

There's a particular ice cream shop that Anna likes to visit after class, not because the ice cream is particularly good – it is, in fact, terrible – but because watching the giant bear mascot across the road makes her happy. Anna trudges from home and sits down outside the shop. It's later than usual, but the bear is still there. As Anna tentatively licks at the mint ice cream in her hands, she observes the bear handing out balloons to kids. Must be a Common, Anna thinks, because Savants wouldn't be doing this kind of menial work, but Anna herself is a Common, albeit a privileged one, and she doesn't judge. Whoever is in the bear costume must love kids, because despite the heat, the bear keeps up its enthusiasm and poses for a picture with a little girl who kisses her muzzle.

Heh, the bear even pretends to blush and hide its eyes behind its paws.

Anna smiles sadly when the bear waves goodbye to the little girl, because she can't help but think of a time when Ellie had been like that too. Before they had really understood what it meant to be Savant and Common, and they had just been sisters and, even better, friends, equals. Now Anna feels the second skin of inferiority beginning to chafe.

Suddenly there's a shadow looming over her, and Anna looks up.

It's the bear.

"Uhh…" Anna's embarrassed to hear her voice crack a little, and she hurriedly sniffs like she hadn't just been on the verge of crying. "Can I help you?"

"Umm…"

Oh, the bear is a girl.

"Feel better."

The bear sheepishly scratches the back of its head, hands her a balloon, and leaves.

Ellie already has a job at Arendelle Biotech, where she's practically the foremost researcher, but she's twenty-one years old and she still goes to school for the sake of normalcy.

Nobody likes her very much.

If Savants are disliked by the Commons, then she is a Savant to the Savants. They have one, two, maybe three talents, but she is talent. Whatever they specialize in, she can do better, so of course they dislike her. Ellie doesn't blame them; they might be Savants, but they are still human, and they can't escape the human condition of scorning the weak and envying the strong.

Sol slides into the seat opposite hers at the dining hall.

"Hey, Ellie," Sol says, and much like her own languid motions, she slides a stack of paper her way in a sinuous curve. "I wrote a novel. Want to read it? It's not very good, of course…"

Sol doesn't mean that. She believes her work to be a masterpiece, and Ellie knows her work well enough to agree. It's just what's expected to occur in a social exchange, the qualification of humility.

"No, thank you."

"Aww. Why not?"

"Your writing is pointless."

"What! I have themes," Sol says.

"You can just as easily experience those outside of books. If you just stopped to think about your own experiences for a moment, wouldn't that be more enlightening?"

Ellie gets up and leaves.

Anna is disappointed when she realizes the bear isn't there today.

Her day off, maybe, and the break is well-deserved so Anna doesn't begrudge the bear's absence. She sits and endures a cup of ice cream, grimacing at the watered down flavor. Class went well enough. She had broken off her date with Kristoff, and he had been nice about being let down, wasn't angry at all. He's...just that kind of person, Anna wants to say, but she's sure that he had to be at least somewhat upset. Kristoff's the kind of person to ignore his own disappointment in favor of being nice.

Yes, Anna decides.

It makes Kristoff an even better person, actually.

"Aww, shoot," Anna mutters, when she notices the ice cream melting all over her hand and dripping down to her lap. Her pants were new, too.

Someone's shadow grows over her. Anna looks up, and—

"Ellie?"

Same face, but no, not unless Ellie had decided to bleach her hair white-blonde, surgically added some minor freckles to her face, and lost about ninety-five percent of her confidence. But the resemblance is uncanny. They have the exact same face. Ellie is beautiful, and this blonde is just as beautiful—which is saying a lot, because no one has ever been comparable to Ellie, and this blonde only is because they look the same, and isn't that just complimenting Ellie all over again? Anna feels a headache growing at the thought. At least the blonde sets her at ease, because she looks just as anxious as Anna feels.

"Here," says the blonde, and she hands her some napkins. Anna realizes that, while she had been scrutinizing the blonde, her ice cream had melted even more.

"Thanks!" Anna takes the napkins and wipes up the mess, but then she stops, because from that one word the other girl had said, she can recognize her voice.

The blonde is the bear.

"It's you!" Anna roars, and the other girl looks a little scared for a moment until Anna calms down and adds, "S-Sorry, I got excited. You're the bear mascot, right? You handed me a balloon the other day."

"Y-Yeah. I'm Elsa. Are you feeling any better today?"

Weird, even her name is similar to Ellie.

"I am," Anna says, smiling. "Thank you, you really helped me out."

Elsa scratches the back of her head. "I didn't really do much, though."

"No, you did! I was…I was having a bit of a fight with my sister."

"Oh. Do you…want to talk about it?" Elsa widens her eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just a stranger, I'm sure you don't want to—"

"Sit!" Anna pats the spot next to her on the bench, and Elsa gingerly takes the offered seat. "Seriously, you don't feel like a stranger. This might sound weird, but you look like my sister, just…blonde."

"That's an odd coincidence."

"Right?" Anna clears her throat. "Well, anyway, long story short, my sister is a Savant and she called me out for being Common."

Elsa looks at her for a long moment, and there's something surprisingly perceptive in her gaze; Anna feels like she's being deconstructed. It's almost a harsh gaze.

"Maybe you could...give a little more detail?"

Anna's a bit puzzled by this, but she does, because she likes Elsa and because she's used to following commands from Ellie. Once she starts talking, she realizes that she can't stop. She goes on and on about Ellie, goes as far back as when they were kids, because no one else has cared to listen before, or if they do, they listen halfheartedly and offer the same advice that tells her Ellie is a terrible person. Anna wants to hear that, but at the same time, she doesn't.

Elsa is quiet for a long while after Anna has finished, and they sit in silence at the now almost-empty ice cream shop.

"I think you're being a little hard on your sister," Elsa says.

"…What?"

"Well…" Elsa shrugs. "I think, in an odd way, I understand her a little. I'm…not very confident. I mean, I'm not confident at all, actually. But people like me because of that, because they want to be able to give me advice, and…I don't know. It feels condescending, sometimes. I can tell, too, they get annoyed when I'm always down on myself, but I can't help it. And your sister…is on the other end of that. Isn't it weird that people tell me to be more confident, but when your sister is confident, they feel…slighted?"

"Y-Yeah, but…" Anna feels her heartbeat quicken, for whatever reason. It's definitely not the beginnings of guilt. "Ellie is obnoxious."

"I might be reading too much into it," Elsa agrees. "And I'm not saying that she's right to act the way she does. You know her better than I do."

Do I really, Anna wonders. She can't help but feel like Elsa has just understood more than she ever will in her lifetime.

"Thank you, for the talk," Anna says.

Elsa smiles and gets up from her seat, waves goodbye, and she leaves.

As Anna watches her back, she realizes that Elsa is perfectly imperfect, but Ellie…

Ellie is just perfect.

How terrible.

a/n: After nearly a year, finally writing this for mpsantiago. It's very different from what was discussed - this story's become much more of a commentary on the nature of social relationships and social conventions (as well as a bit of self-critique!). Ending is a little abrupt, but I wanted this to be (somewhat) standalone in case I don't get around to updating.