Kristoff stared up at the ceiling of Anna's bed chamber. Though the bedding was clean and the mattress softer than any surface he'd slept on in weeks, and though his wife lay atop the blankets beside him, silent, warm, and gloriously bare-skinned, sleep eluded him. He was not a light sleeper. Normally he would drop off soon after he lay his head down, no matter the conditions, and not stir till morning, but nights spent in the castle were different. Still so different. The width of the rooms. The softness of the beds. And of course, Anna. Who was not a light sleeper either. He turned his head and looked at her face. Her eyes were closed, her lips pressed together, her breathing steady and silent. Silent.
"Can I ask you a question, Anna?"
Her eyes opened. She was on her side, facing him, one slender arm draped across his bulky bare chest, her other arm folded beneath her head. "Can't sleep either?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Not yet."
She shifted closer to him. Their skin connected, and Kristoff thought - as he did every single time they spent the night like this - how strange it was to be here. Sharing a bed with another person. Intimately. Not where he thought his life's path would ever lead him. Not what he was ever looking for. Being intimate with someone. Being in love.
"Something on your mind?" she asked.
"No. I mean, nothing serious." He ran a hand through his blonde hair and sighed. "It's just...the sky is so bright tonight. Isn't it?"
Anna lifted her head and glanced about. Yellow-green light swirled down the walls and across the features of the room - the dressing screen, the writing desk, the dresser, the chess table and chairs - brightening every corner and casting shadows that twisted, stretched, and banked over the crimson carpet. "Yeah, you're right." Her head dropped back down onto her pillow.
"I was just wondering if you knew...where it comes from?" Kristoff asked.
"Hm?"
"The...lights."
She blinked. "Oh." Then breathed in, deeply, drew her hand through her already entangled strawberry blonde hair, and breathed out.
"It's just," Kristoff continued, "I never attended school, of course you know by now...never was tutored much...except for what the harvesters taught me. About the ice trade. Otherwise I'm a little - more than a little - ignorant."
"You're not ignorant."
"I am. More than you know, Anna."
"You've had a different life. That's all. There are many things you know about that I haven't a clue of."
"Yeah? Like what?"
She tapped his chest with her finger, once. "Mountaineering."
He chuckled. "True."
"...reindeer husbandry."
"Mhm..."
"Family dynamics."
"Family...dynamics? Oh come on. Really?"
She nodded at him. "Even when my parents were alive I didn't get to spend a lot of time with them. Both Mama and Papa were very busy managing things, often outside the castle - traveling because, as I now believe, they were doing their best to make our...situation seem as normal as it could. Not suspicious to anyone. More than it already seemed at least. 'So great to have the gates open.' Ugh, Anna thought. 'Why did they shut them in the first place? Do you know the reason? Hm?'
'No -'
"You were left alone in the castle?" Kristoff asked.
"Not always," Anna replied. "But often. Elsa was here of course, but she...you know. And Kai and Gerda, they spent some time with me. And I had my tutor, but we never had any visitors. I never got to meet anyone, like ever. Never got to talk to anyone from beyond our borders...never got to meet anyone new or different, except for our trips into the village which were, like, once every couple of fortnights at most. Never got to go on an adventure. Never made any new friends. Ever..."
His hand searched for hers and clasped it. He wanted to reassure her, say that his own childhood was not so different - he did spend many nights on his own, but then he always had Sven. And he was generally free to travel where he wanted, and did so, into the village or elsewhere. Somehow Anna, despite being far more sociable and friendly than he could ever hope to become, despite being royalty and having more than he ever dreamed of having in his life before meeting her on that astonishing, snow-swept summer evening, two years ago - somehow she had, perhaps, experienced a more limited life than his own. Perhaps.
"Oh, but your question." Anna sniffed, and glanced once again around the room - so bright despite the depth of the night. "The lights. Well, I can remember being taught two theories." She rolled onto her back and lifted her hands. "The first one - " she said, splaying her fingers and waving them slightly, "is that...ice crystals in the sky...reflect the light of the sun. From over the horizon. Or something like that. Suno Arnelius proposed that theory." She folded her arms across her bare chest.
"Ice crystals?"
Anna nodded.
"In the sky. Interesting - "
"The second theory," she broke in, remembering, "is that," she cleared her throat, "'the aural rays' - the lights we see - 'are due to particles which are affected by the magnetic field. The rays are parallel to the Earth's magnetic field, and the vault-like shape' - the way the lights seem to rise vertically into the sky - 'is due to perspective phenomena.'"
Kristoff scratched his temple. "And - who proposed that theory?"
"One Sir Edmund Halley."
"Hm. I've never heard of him before. Interesting."
"Oh! I remember a third theory too. Something about gas escaping from beneath the surface of the earth that makes the lights. I don't think I remember who proposed that one though."
"Gas."
She nodded. She tapped his chest again with her fingers. Ran her fingertips slowly up and down his bare skin, drawing pictures, making shapes. Spelling her name, and his.
Then he touched her brow with his palm. Stroked the side of her head with his thumb. "You seem to know a lot about this."
She turned back onto her side and smiled at him. Shrugged. "I guess. I love the sky. I love the stars."
Kristoff sighed heavily and closed his eyes. "Let's try to - "
"Uh-uh," Anna interjected. "Now it's my turn to ask a question." She narrowed her eyes at him. Yellow-green light washed over her face, then faded, her features darkening.
"Well - alright. Ask away."
"Have you ever wanted to hate someone?"
Kristoff stared at her silently for a moment, then looked back up at the ceiling. "Hate someone?" He paused, thinking, then gently shook his head. "No, I don't think so. I've never liked people. At all. Except you of course. And Elsa. I like her too. But hate anyone?" He gently shook his head again. Then asked: "You?"
Anna was silent for a moment. He looked at her and noticed how her eyes stared blankly down, somewhere into the bedding bunched at the end of the bed beyond their feet.
He waited.
But she never replied. Instead she slowly turned, onto her other side, facing away from him.
Kristof looked at her smooth, bare back - the curve of her hips - the length of her legs. The smallness of her feet. Then said: "Do you know what some of the harvesters I used to work with call the lights?"
No reply.
"'Guovssahas'."
Anna's head lifted up slightly. "...really?" she asked in a small voice.
"Uh-huh."
She turned back toward him, and said: "The light you can hear." Her eyes were wide with wonder. "Can you really?"
Kristoff stroked her bare, freckled shoulder, down to her hand. "I don't think you can really hear the lights. It's more of a - feeling. You feel like you can hear them."
"Hm." Anna touched his cheek. "Interesting."
"Would you like me to take you to a good place to - hear - the lights? It's high in the mountains. At least a couple days journey. I'm pretty sure you've never been there before."
She nodded.
"Alright. Let's do it soon - tomorrow or the next day. With the lights so bright now, it should be a good time to go."
Anna smiled. "An adventure. Sounds great to me."
A/N: thanks to chocolategeometry for the prompt: "Anna/Kristoff, Have you ever wanted to hate someone?"