A Reindeer Song Without Words
Kristoff kicked open the door of the abandoned stable with an angry grunt. He shouldn't have kidded himself—Oaken was just like everyone else. A greedy crook who only cared about how much money he could leech from unsuspecting customers who didn't know any better. Then that annoying, way too chirpy girl just had to start making conversation with him, refusing to see he wanted to be left alone. Asking him a thousand questions about the "magic" on the North Mountain and trying to make a joke about his ruined ice business with the onset of this mid-summer winter. Nothing was going right for him tonight!
Who thinks it's funny to joke about ruined harvests, anyway?!
Now the door groaned on its hinges, as though reluctant to open on such a frigid night. Refusing to back down, Kristoff shoved it open with a hand, revealing an empty barn with hay bales stacked floor to ceiling against the wooden walls. Discarded wheels, empty containers, spare saddles for horses, and other miscellaneous artefacts cluttered the floor and walls. Tufts of chilly drafts drifted through cracks and holes in the leaky ceiling and rotting walls. The wooden rafters' paint was peeling and chipping away, flakes even now drifted through the dusty air of the barn. An old spider web ballooned in one corner of the mouldy celling, the arachnid balled into a dead husk nearby.
Better than nothing, Kristoff huffed.
"Well, get in!" Kristoff urged Sven, his bad mood getting the better of him.
Without glancing at him, the reindeer stomped inside the musty barn. Kristoff rolled his eyes at Sven's huffy mood.
"Hey, it's not my fault I didn't get your carrots!" Kristoff protested. "I don't know why I'm even surprised! They're all the same!"
Lute still gripped in one hand, Kristoff slammed the barn's door on the snow, ice, Oaken, and that annoying girl, whoever she was. As long as she didn't come barging in too, he could at least sleep tonight, despite a rumbling stomach.
Throwing himself back into a bed of hay, Kristoff idly plucked at his lute, hearing the clip-clop of Sven's feet as the reindeer settled down next to him.
They're all the same, Kristoff groused, every single one. Even that girl, whoever she is, wandering around in nothing but a summer dress in the snow. No one can be that friendly and not be a crook too.
Music always made him feel a little better, no matter what happened at the end of the day. With each pluck of his lute's strings, his pent-up frustrations were released into whatever ditty entered his head. He relished being in Sven's company; he always accompanied him in their little ditties, Kristoff using a silly voice to replicate the reindeer's . He vastly preferred a reindeer's company to any human's. They didn't talk back, cheat him, tell him to shove off, or toy with his trust like a child's plaything. One reindeer had more loyalty than a hundred humans—men and women. He would never trust another person—even if they gave him cause for trust. Even Sven agreed—he always did—that reindeers were better than people. A reindeer was less likely to curse and hurt Kristoff as long as he kept out of range of any annoyed reindeer's antlers. He'd once been on the receiving end of one particularly grumpy stray reindeer's antlers, and Kristoff had spent many days afterwards nursing bruised ribs.
For all his grudges against humankind though, even Kristoff had to admit people's odours were generally easier on the nose than reindeers'. Except, Sven disagreed, for Kristoff's own body odour. If his grouchy front didn't deter people, keeping them at a distance, then his smell certainly did. If Kristoff ever had a bath in his life, it was too long ago to even remember when. Probably at least a couple or so years ago. Kristoff had encountered reindeers with less offensive odours than his. At least Sven was honest enough to admit it to Kristoff, knowing the latter couldn't care less what he smelled like.
Music again flowed through Kristoff's plucking fingers, his former irritation melting away. Now he didn't mind the leaky old barn so much, exhaustion pushing to the forefront of his mind. Wanting to round off the small improvised ditty, Kristoff bid his loyal reindeer "goodnight", pretending Sven returned the goodwill in his "reindeer voice". The ice harvester closed his eyes, allowing his aching muscles to relax, his head tilting back on the hay under him. But no sooner did he so comfortably lie back in preparation for a good snooze, then the door banged open, jolting both man and reindeer from drowsiness.
"Nice duet!"
Oh, not her again.
With a frustrated groan, Kristoff sat up, blinking dust out of his eyes. Indeed, there she was again, but no longer in the gorgeous yet ridiculously unseasonable dress. Now she had changed into a simple dress with a pink woollen cloak and matching hood on her head. Her hair was no longer in its elegant hairstyle, but now in two simple plaits that trailed over her shoulders. A streak of white weaved through one of her braids. She looked very different from before when she was still in her green dress. If she hadn't been the only girl hanging around in Oaken's trading post, Kristoff might have thought she was someone else. But this was still the same face, her back bearing the same posture that could only belong to someone of high status, and the same bright red hair with its ribbon of white. It could only be her.
She's never going to leave me alone.
Well, now that he wasn't going back to sleep, after having been so rudely jolted awake, and seeing it was clear she wasn't going to leave him be, Kristoff resigned himself to engaging conversation with her. And now for completely no reason whatsoever, Sven got all excited at her entrance and presence. Kristoff could hear the reindeer snuffling beside him as though he smelled something tasty—like carrots.
What, Sven? Kristoff asked telepathically. Why are you so excited about this girl? She's just another ordinary person—why is she so special to you all of a sudden?
"Oh, it's just you," Kristoff muttered, not bothering to hide his irritation at the stranger, "What do you want?"
The young girl straightened her shoulders, trying to look as stately as she could.
Is she trying to impress me? Because it's not working.
"I want you to take me up the North Mountain."
Oh so that's it. Well she's going to be disappointed.
With another groan, Kristoff flopped back down on the hay, dropping his hat over his eyes like a blindfold. It not only helped shut out any stray bright lights, but also this irritating new presence standing in the barn.
"I don't take people places," he declared.
"Let me rephrase that."
Now something hard and painful landed right on the soft part of his belly, jolting him from his desperate attempts to go to sleep again. He opened his eyes, sitting up a little again, glaring at the girl.
"Hey!"
Now the girl looked down at him, her expression even bossier than before.
Who does she think she is? A princess?
"Take me up the North Mountain," and then added, almost in a small afterthought, "Please."
Kristoff sat up, pushing Sven's nose out of the way as he untied the satchel the girl had launched at him. Rummaging around, his hands hit twine and a handle. Pulling them out, he saw the axe and rope that he had tried to buy at Oaken's trading post.
How'd she pay for this?
Kristoff glanced up at the girl, the same question written in his bemused expression. The girl refused to back down, her eyes still focussed unrelenting on him as she insisted she knew how to stop this godforsaken mid-summer's winter. It was all too clear that she wasn't going to give up any time soon.
She's coming no matter what I say to dissuade her.
With a defeated groan, Kristoff flopped back down for a third time on the hay bale, his hat replaced over his eyes.
"We leave at dawn," he said, "and you forgot the carrots for Sven."
Another projectile smacked him soundly in the head, electing a loud "ow!" from him. This girl was really getting on his nerves!
"Sorry, I'm sorry!" the girl babbled, even as he opened the bag to discover a bunch of carrots inside. She cleared her throat. "We leave now. Right now."
With that, she turned, her nose lifted in the air, leaving him staring speechless after her back. But he still heard her little "whew" of relief even as he pulled out a carrot and shared it with Sven. He had to take this girl up the North Mountain, and that's what he would do, just so she'd leave him alone. Once she was at the North Mountain, he could just go about his business as usual, unbothered by bothersome people.
Reindeers are still better than people, and no one will change that. Not even her.