Royal Ball Days
Kristoff hates ball days.
It's a widely known fact in the castle that he is moody and generally dour on the day of a ball. Most assume that it has to do with having to put on stiff finery—and he won't deny that he dislikes that. Some assume it has to do with knowing that he'll have to watch his beloved Anna dance with other men all night—and he'll agree that he hates that quite a lot, even if at the end of each dance with visiting dignitaries she returns to him for a hug or a kiss or a dance or just to complain about smushed toes or the smell of brie on this Count or the pickled herring smell that seemed to waft from the pores of that Duke or whatever bothered her during the dance. Even Elsa, who probably knows him best out of anyone other than his wife, believes that he simply feels out of place during the pomp and circumstance associated with royal balls.
It's only Anna who knows the truth.
The reason that Kristoff hates ball days is that they start with Anna being led away early in the morning, often while he is out tending to Sven and the other reindeer that now lead his team (the new sled she got him, while top of the line, required a minimum of two beasts to haul it once it was fitted with the trailer to haul ice behind it, so Kristoff adopted two other reindeer and has Sven lead the team of three while they go harvesting). By the time he returns to the castle it is lunch time, which, on ball days is a casual and rushed affair, and, frankly, eating sandwiches just isn't the same anymore without Anna pontificating on how much she loves them between hearty bites. After lunch, he is to bathe—when they first wed, Elsa tried to have her brother in law utilize their father's former valet, but Kristoff hadn't been in any way comfortable with it and so they'd compromised by having the valet simply assist in the more complicated aspects of dressing, like the tying of ties and binding of sashes, both tasks that Kristoff admitted to having trouble making his large fingers accomplish. Once clean—and awkwardly sniffed by the valet to ensure he does not smell of reindeer—Kristoff is to dress in one of his suits, which is already laid out for him, and once he is deemed adequately dressed, he is to go downstairs to wait for Anna.
He's still not entirely sure what, exactly, Anna goes through on ball days. He does know that her skin glows and her hair shines and she smells of flowers he's never encountered in the mountains. He knows that she always looks gorgeous in whatever new gown she has had made for the ball, though he finds her gorgeous in dirty riding clothes when they go up into the mountains together to visit his family. He knows, also, that her hair, which is usually restrained in one or two simple braids that hang loosely over her shoulders, is braided into an intricate nest of braids that twist around her skull and are attached with jewelled pins that restrict him from burying his fingers in her beautiful red locks when he kisses her (Kristoff loves lacing his fingers through her silken hair, loves cradling her delicate skull in his hand as they kiss, loves when they pull apart and Anna is so deliciously mussed) until after the ball.
That, Anna knows, is why Kristoff hates ball days.
1/1