"Kristoff," Elsa asked suddenly, "what happened to your hand?"

He paused, his arm checked in its reach for the decanter, and shared a brief, panicked look across the table with Anna.

"Uh. Ah, I just…had a little accident when I was up in the mountains."

The queen raised an eyebrow. "You went into the mountains since this morning? Your hand was fine at breakfast." She glanced from Kristoff's reddening face to Anna's excessively innocent one. "Well? What actually happened? I suppose it will explain why you were late to dinner."

Kristoff looked at Anna. Anna looked back at Kristoff. Kristoff looked down at his hand—he must have broken the scabs open somehow, because blood had soaked through the bandage that had so hastily been wrapped around his knuckles. He wished desperately that he was a better liar, because Elsa had settled back in her chair, her own hands folded neatly in her lap, her face calm and expectant and dammit, he was going to have to tell her. Something about that quietly interested expression dragged the truth out of people, which had been very useful as Arendelle improved its diplomatic position but which was inconvenient for certain ice harvesters with skinned knuckles. Damned inconvenient, because he was going to tell her the whole thing, and he already knew that she wasn't going to like it. He was in so much trouble.

There were many things that Elsa wasn't going to like about the story of how Kristoff had skinned his knuckles. There was the fact that he had snuck Anna away from the castle, the princess incognito in a borrowed dress and with her hair covered by a scarf. There was the fact that he had taken Anna to a tavern on the outskirts of the city, because she wanted to learn the rowdy, energetic country dances that looked to her so much more exciting than the stately revolving dances she had been taught. There was the fact that, once he'd swung Anna through several vigorous reels, he had left her alone—

"Alone?"

"I wasn't alone," Anna told her sister reassuringly. "One of the other ice harvesters that Kristoff knows was there to look after me, I was fine."

—he had left her alone with Edvin for just one dance while he got away from the noise and heat for a minute to have a quiet drink in the bar. And then there was the fact that a few other men were also in the bar, and the fact that they were saying things, and the fact that with half a tankard of beer in him (okay, on top the two full tankards that he'd had when they first arrived, because Anna had wanted to try one and had rejected it as disgusting and bitter after one sip but he'd already bought it in addition to one for himself) he felt inclined to do something about it. And then there was the fact that, okay, he'd punched the loudest of the men in the face.

Elsa raised an eyebrow at that, and the expectancy never left her face. She could tell there was more. Damn.

Because there was also the fact that Kristoff had exchanged punches with the loud man's three friends. And the fact that he'd thrown one of them through the window accidentally—

"How, exactly, do you accidentally throw someone out of a window?"

"You get so mad and drunk that you aim for the wall and miss," Kristoff muttered.

Elsa lifted her chin slightly. Go on.

Kristoff sighed because after the incident with the window there was the fact that the crowd in the dance hall—which was really more of a barn with pretensions—had realized there was a fistfight in progress and had abandoned the dance en masse to watch. And the fact that Anna, seeing her fiancé in a struggle with two other men, had decided to take action. Action that involved joining the fight. Action that also involved stealing—

"Borrowing!"

—borrowing a lute from one of the musicians and breaking it over the head of one of Kristoff's assailants.

"It isn't borrowing if you can't give it back, Anna," Elsa pointed out, and turned back to Kristoff.

Damn. He was going to tell her about the watchmen. The watchmen that had arrived in time for Anna's display of feistiness, and who had subsequently taking the princess and the ice master into custody. Only the distinctive copper sheen of Anna's hair, released from the scarf once they were away from the tavern, had saved them from a stay in one of the cells at the watch house. Instead it had earned them an interview with the commander of the watch.

"And what did Sir Samuel have to say to you?"

"Ah…" Kristoff paused, searching desperately for a way to describe the grumpy, tired, whiskey-scented watch commander that wouldn't get the man in trouble. Sir Samuel had gotten on his nerves, but he had let them go with the tacit agreement that no more would be said about it. "He seemed to feel that dealing with us was…was a bit above his pay grade," he said finally.

"I liked him!" Anna said.

"Of course you did," Elsa said, finally relaxing from her interrogative pose and rubbing one temple with her fingertips. "Sir Samuel is very…well. Committed to his work."

"I think he needs a wife," Anna said thoughtfully.

"I think he needs a raise," Kristoff muttered.

"I think he needs to have the good sense to put the two of you in a cell where you obviously belong." Elsa paused. "Separate cells," she amended.

"Elsa!"

The queen ignored her sister to turn to Kristoff. "What got into you, Kristoff?"

"Do you mean other than the beer?"

"Yes, other than that. How could you lose your temper badly enough to start a fight? Don't you realize how poorly that reflects on you? On me? On Anna?"

"Elsa, don't," Anna said, putting one placating hand out to Elsa and curling the fingers of the other around Kristoff's palm. "It wasn't like that. No one there knew Kristoff except Edvin, and he won't say anything. And no one recognized me until we were with the watch and away from the tavern. It's going to be fine. No harm done, except that we owe the tavern keeper a window—"

"—and a chair," Kristoff muttered.

"And a chair…"

"And someone else a lute," Elsa added dryly.

"Right, a window, a chair, and a lute. That's all. And Kristoff's hand, which will heal. Although it probably needs a new bandage." Anna poked at it experimentally.

"Ow!"

"Sorry, sorry. Hang on, I'll ask for some fresh bandages."

"Kristoff," Elsa said sternly, but softly, as soon as Anna was out of earshot. "What were you thinking? What could they possibly have been saying that warranted this kind behavior?"

Kristoff rubbed at the back of his head with the hand that wasn't bleeding. Elsa noted the gesture, her eyebrows lifting.

"Kristoff." Damn everything, she using the voice. "Tell me what made you decide it was a good idea to knock a man down just for speaking."

He sighed. "He was…he was saying things. Inappropriate things. About women."

"I'm under the impression that many men say inappropriate things about women. I believe that being specially trained in this art is why young men are sent to boarding schools and apprenticeships."

"I—wait, what? Was that a…was that a joke?"

Elsa ignored the question, leaning back in her chair. "Why was what he was saying so much worse than what men generally say?"

"It's…" Kristoff sighed. "It's different when they're saying things about women I know."

"What? Were they saying things about Anna?" There was a dangerous, cold glint in the queen's eyes, and Kristoff had a sudden vision of what might have happened in those men had been saying things about Anna, and the queen had been there to here it. More things might have broken than a window (…and a chair, and a lute. And that one man's collarbone. And the other man's wrist).

"No, not about Anna," he said hastily. "Um…it…" He sighed. "It was about you."

"Me?" Elsa sounded, for once, completely dumbfounded. "Kristoff—people do say things about me. They'd say things about any ruler…"

"Not…not these things," Kristoff muttered. "Not about any ruler."

"Just what were these things, then?"

The voice again. Damn, he really didn't want to tell her, but he was going to tell her. "They were…intimate things," he said finally. "Very…intimate. Lewd things. Vulgar." And detailed. 'Do you think she's chilly on the inside' had been the tamest observation, and it had been enough to make his blood boil. The following remarks had only gotten worse. Personally he thought that he'd kept his temper a remarkably long time, considering the provocation.

"Oh," Elsa said flatly. "Oh." She sighed and shook her head, muttering to herself. "'Be thou as chaste as ice…'"

"Huh?"

"It's from a play. 'Be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.'"

"What's a calumny?"

"It means slander, if I remember correctly. Listen, Kristoff—women, especially women who are…"

"Powerful?" he suggested.

"I was going to say notorious, but thank you." She smiled at him briefly before looking back down at her hands. "Women who are known, especially women who for some reason are, as you say, in power…especially in power over men…this is going to happen." Elsa flexed her fingers, curling and uncurling them in her lap. "I had a tutor who had me study the careers of different queens, once it was clear that I would never have a brother to be the heir. He very delicately led me to some of the things that people said about them—even the queens that history remembers as great. An unmarried queen who devotes her life to her country must be frigid, or perverted. A queen who gives her husband many children must be insatiable, and is perhaps also perverted. Queens who lead their nations in wartime are bloodthirsty harpies, and queens are cautious and diplomatic invite men to step on them. The slander that people have spoken about queens…it is enormous." She laced her fingers together, sighing. "I am grateful to my tutor, for preparing me, but…it was one of the reasons I was so afraid to be queen. Am afraid. But…it cannot be stopped, Kristoff."

"It should be stopped!" Kristoff's fist slammed unthinkingly against the table and he winced. His knuckles were, yes, definitely bleeding now, and throbbing. But the more Elsa had said in her calm, even voice, the more he had felt the same anger from that afternoon boiling up in him. Not directed at her, but at those men, and all the men like them in history. "It isn't fair. Not for anyone, but especially for you—I mean, it's not as if the entire kingdom doesn't know at least a part of what you've been through. Dammit, is it not enough that you had to grow up scared and alone, and be orphaned, and nearly die? Is it not enough that ever since the Thaw you've been the best damn queen this country has ever had? Do they not realize how much time you spend working, for them? All the diplomacy to keep them safe, to keep them in business? And all they can think about is…is…things they shouldn't be thinking about!"

He didn't realize he was shouting until Anna came running back into the room, her arms full of bandages and jars of ointment, her eyes wide. She slid to a stop, panting. "What is—are you guys okay?" she asked finally, looking from one to the other.

Elsa's eyes were also wide, but then she suddenly smiled. "Thank you, Kristoff," she said.

"I'm sorry, I'm so—what?"

"Thank you," she repeated. "For caring what people say about me. For…thinking well of me. Thank you."

He shrugged awkwardly. "I just…of course."

"Your hand is still bleeding," she pointed out.

Anna dumped her supplies—enough to supply a small infirmary—on the table proudly and began dabbing ointment on Kristoff's hand, wrapping the bandage with a look of intense concentration on her face.

"Wait," Elsa said, after a few layers covered the damaged skin. She leaned over, touching the cloth lightly, and a layer of frost covered it, cooling the swelling. "There."

Anna finished winding the bandage so that the thin layer of unmelting ice was covered up and sat back with a proud smile. "All better!"

"Thanks," Kristoff told her, grinning, then glanced at Elsa. "And thank you, too."

Elsa rose from her seat, and he stood hastily, but instead of saying goodnight and leaving to go upstairs she came to him and, a little gingerly, put her arms around him in a rather stiff and formal gesture that nevertheless appeared to be a hug. Kristoff's arms had lifted automatically, and his hands hovered awkwardly in the air for a moment before he gingerly laid one on her shoulder, the other on her back, patting lightly. The stiffness and the space between them, however, were eliminated when Anna flung her arms around them both, squeezing them together and to her.

"You do love each other!" she said triumphantly. "I knew that you would!"

"Of course, silly," Elsa said, brushing at the new wrinkles on her dress as she stepped back from the hug. She smiled at her sister, and then at Kristoff. "We're family."