Author's Note: Trying to figure out how I'm going to write Kristoff for my new fic, which is funny because he's shown up in others, but then I wasn't sure how to write him at all there, either. So I'm using Kristoff Week and its prompts to sort of figure out where I'm going with him; or at least, see if other people agree with possible interpretations. Anyways, here's a ~1,000 word drabble for the first prompt: "Young Kristoff". Enjoy!
An Auspicious Beginning
"Happy birthday…to me…"
The wind whistled past the crevice where the two of them sat hunched together. Beyond the gap, through the trees, he could imagine them, waiting, lurking.
"Happy birthday…to me…"
The little reindeer, so young that its thin legs were all knees and hooves that shivered and knocked against him when he held it in his lap, gave a soft moan and struggled weakly. Kristoff's eyes never left the gap as he yanked the animal closer to his chest and dug his nose into its too-thin neck. The fur there was the softest: it almost felt like a caress. He blinked quickly, his wet eyelashes getting caught in the delicate strands of fur.
"Happy birthday, dear Kristoff…"
He bit his lip and whimpered, squeezing his eyes shut when the howls started up again. The stink of the carcass outside filled the air with the smell of a mother's desperation and final sacrifice. The reindeer was lucky that its eyes had only just now begun to flutter open: it was not a sight anyone deserved to see. Kristoff himself had been lucky enough that he had been spared his own living nightmare. At least, in the flesh.
"Happy birthday…to me," he whispered into its fur. The young reindeer lifted his head and bleated, knocking its head against his cheek when it did so. He opened his eyes, swallowing as his elbow drew over the rows of lines in the rock, slices made in patterns of four, over and over again, stopping just before his nose. They'd given up on their live prey after a little while and focused upon the meal that was accessible, and Kristoff had turned his face into the walls and ignored the way the reindeer protested when he covered its ears with hands that shook.
He had counted the seconds by the beat of his heart before he realized it was much too quick for that. Afterwards he had kept time by the color of the sky as the robin's egg blue gave way to a muddy yellow, then to red clay and then finally to a darkness so complete he could only be sure the reindeer was still with him when it moved, trying to squirm away from the cage of his arms.
"I'm seven," he told the air around them. The reindeer cocked its head at the noise, its ears swiveling towards him and brushing his neck. It shifted and one of its hooves dug into his thigh like a sharp pinch. Through the gap several pairs of eyes glinted, as if burning with an inner fire. They had quieted down again, content to sit and wait. He licked his lips, the night air cold against his skin.
"I'm a man, now."
No one said anything. The reindeer's chest, pressed so tightly against his own, rose and fell more slowly. He sucked in a quick breath and shook it awake, causing the animal to groan and shuffle as it rearranged itself in its irritation, but the thought of being left behind was too frightening to endure.
"Mamma," he said, and swallowed thickly around something in his throat. It hurt going down. "Mamma," he said again, to the reindeer, "would say...she would say, that I wasn't a man, not yet, because it was better to be a boy."
It had been their little game. Kristoff knew that Mamma needed a man, knew from the way she pawned off necklaces and dresses and her own mother's broach one summer, just to keep them from starving, knew from the way people looked at the wives of their village and then at her, knew from the way she petted his hair and laid him to bed, murmuring about how much he took after his father when she believed him asleep. So he had decided, upon turning four, that he was going to be the man that Mamma needed him to be. The first time she had been startled, so much so that even as a child he could see the hurt in her eyes when he explained. The second time, when he had turned five, she had covered her pained eyes with one hand and removed it when she smiled.
When he turned six and proudly announced that this time, for sure, he was a man, she had laughed and called him her silly little boy, stroking his cheeks with her hard hands, the result of hard labor, long hours, and a special kind of endurance known only to those who have brought a child into the world, into their world.
He looked out at the night, where the cow's skeleton would have been, and for a moment believed he could see something white glinting in the black. Kristoff trembled as he realized that it was yet another pair of eyes, watching from afar with patience born of years of training in the art of the hunt.
"I want to be a boy still. I want…"
He laid his head over the reindeer's back, the sharp edges of its backbone digging into his ear. For once the animal did nothing. It didn't try to crawl back through the crevice, towards the smell of mother and milk, tainted as it was by blood, nor did it try to free itself from the arms of this strange, yet warm beast that held it fiercely, shuddering and shaking whenever something howled.
"I want you to stay, okay?" His voice cracked, but this time Mamma didn't appear. This time she wasn't there to lay a kiss on his nose and rub his shoulders. Those times were a whole lifetime ago.
"I just want someone to stay with me, please." He could still see them, huddled around a fire, muttering about the foolishness of whores and dangerous trails. Their eyes had been filled with nothing but knowing contempt and disinterest that trickled into their speech as they laughed and wondered aloud about what had happened. Their faces had been distant and cold when he clung to their clothing and begged. Their hands had been empty when they turned away, because a boy is not a man, no matter how much he may wish that he was.
The reindeer licked his cheek. It felt like a kiss.
"Good boy," he whispered. "You're cute, you know that, right?"
The reindeer evidently agreed, because its nose, wet at the end, blew warm air against his collarbone when it settled its head in a comfortable position. He relaxed his grip just enough so that he could thread his fingers through the fur on its side, tentatively stroking the hairs there as the reindeer gave a heaving sigh of contentment.
"Can I keep you?"
The reindeer didn't say anything, but Kristoff knew that if it could, it would be saying yes, and that was enough.
He leaned back against the cold stone, the reindeer a warm, if bony presence in his lap, and waited to see what the morning had in store for them both.