Kristoff noticed Anna out of the corner of his eye. She wasn't even trying to stifle the most enormous yawn he had ever seen. Wow. That one even put Sven to shame. Any other day, Kristoff would have laughed heartily and pointed this out to Anna. But currently they were in the midst of serious business. Or at least he was. Obviously Anna was in the midst of being bored.
One of the drawbacks of being a young, unmarried Queen, at least in Elsa's estimation, was that every young royal, nobleman in the hemisphere wanted to court favor with her. She was constantly being bombarded with requests for introductions by would be suitors. Elsa was not in the least bit interested in finding a companion. She had just recently overcome her extreme fear of letting Anna hug her. She wasn't even close to comfortable with the idea of being alone with a perfect stranger. However, being the diplomat that she was, she saw no way around addressing these requests without being outwardly rude. And considering her sizable reputation that she was constantly striving to overcome, she decided it was at least prudent to meet and acknowledge these offers of goodwill if nothing else. So once a month, Elsa would begrudgingly choose a day and have her advisors set up a long schedule of meetings with different noblemen and princes and other foreign dignitaries who had written and expressed interest in meeting with the Queen.
That's where Anna and Kristoff came in. Elsa all but begged both of them to accompany her during these exhausting and stressful occasions and they both readily agreed – although for different reasons.
Elsa and Kristoff were already inclined to distrust people and close themselves off emotionally. The incident with Hans simply intensified these feelings and made them both, if possible, even more wary. Surprisingly, of the three of them, Anna was the least affected. Of course she felt rather foolish for being so careless, but once she realized she had never really loved Hans at all, she was pretty much over it. Apparently falling in love and having your heart broken were both equally impossible to accomplish in one day. Anna chalked the whole thing up to her lack of experience and some rotten luck. Hans was an anomaly. Merely a bad apple in the many barrels and barrels of perfectly shiny, delicious apples that were surely out there. To her, every new person was a potential new friend and she couldn't help but be optimistic for her sister. After all, she had found such unexpected love, happiness and companionship with Kristoff, how could she not want the same for Elsa? As each new prospect was introduced, Anna greeted every single one with a huge smile and a tiny wave. You never knew who the next Kristoff would be.
Kristoff, on the other hand, took a much more somber view of the situation. As far as he was concerned, he had already surrendered one woman he cared for, subjecting her to the mercy of another man. The results were devastating. It wouldn't happen again. Not only did Kristoff care about Elsa's wellbeing, but he was perfectly aware that whatever man had access to Elsa, would also be close to Anna by approximation. As he explained to Anna in the simplest of terms, and amid much eye rolling, he wasn't about to let some smarmy, fancy, highbrow prince waltz in and mess up his family. It was not going to happen. Just as Anna immediately approved of every new prospect, Kristoff immediately disliked every single one of them. In his opinion, none of them were worthy of Anna or Elsa's attention. Hell, half the time he didn't feel like HE was worthy of their attention so there was no way any of these other clowns were even close.
Despite being told repeatedly not too, all Kristoff had to do was slowly and deliberately cross his large, muscular arms over his even larger chest, stand with his feet apart, his back ramrod straight with a look on his face even Elsa couldn't match with coldness. Unfailingly the poor soul standing in front of the Queen and company, would stammer, glance nervously at Kristoff, quickly try to figure out who exactly he was (Guard? Escort? Advisor?), decide it didn't matter, hastily wrap up his prepared statement and excuse himself. Elsa's advisors rolled their eyes and moaned each time this happened but Kristoff didn't care. Elsa never complained and the advisors clearly didn't notice that he only did this when, instead of folded calmly in her lap, Elsa's hands were gripping the arms of her throne, sending fine lines of ice frosting down the sides.
They were reaching the end of another one of these grueling days when Kristoff had noticed Anna's very un-princess-like yawn. Elsa was consulting with several advisors – no doubt who were begging her to say something to Kristoff about his threatening posture – as they waited in between suitors. Anna finished her yawn and was lazily smacking her lips when she caught Kristoff watching her. She giggled guiltily and gave him the same little wave she had given every visitor that day. They stood on either side of Elsa and Kristoff was glad they weren't standing together during introductions because that would be very distracting and he liked the effect it had on the callers seeing chipper Anna on one side of Elsa and him on the other. Seeing that they had some time, Anna scootched, what Kristoff could only assume was meant to be inconspicuously, to the other side of the room towards him. Whispering, even though they were well out of Elsa's earshot,
"I'm so tired! We've been doing this all day! They all seem so nice! I don't know how she doesn't like any of them!" Kristoff gawked at her in disbelief.
"Are you serious? Anna, they're all total creeps! They only want to be with her because she's a Queen and she's got powers." Anna gave him a look that clearly said - oh please.
"You need to relax! Just because she IS a Queen and HAS powers does not mean that is why they want to get to know her better!"
"Yes, it does." Kristoff said sternly. "They know nothing else about her!"
"I thought they told you to stop crossing your arms? You've done it during more than half the presentations." Her eyes narrowed and she raised her eyebrow at him suspiciously.
"Well Elsa has never told me to stop. Besides, it's not like I do it on purpose. It just happens. I get tired of standing here too, you know." Kristoff gave her a sideways look to see if she bought it. She didn't.
"Oh no you don't. You totally do it on purpose, Kristoff Bjorgman! You're trying to scare these nice men away and you could be keeping Elsa from her true love!" Anna's whisper was getting louder as she jabbed a pointy finger into his chest. Kristoff rolled his eyes.
"Oh ya? Better to be alone than with any of these creeps. She's not ready, Anna. She'll meet someone in her own time. Not in a presentational ceremony like this. It's so…..I don't know…wrong." He finished lamely. Anna considered what he said with an exasperated yet somewhat touched look on her face.
"I know she's not ready" she sighed in defeat. "I just worry about her is all." Anna turned to go back to her side of the room as Elsa's advisors scuttled out of sight in preparation for the next announcement. Anna turned back to Kristoff,
"Nobody likes being alone, you know." She flashed him a smile. For the first time that day, he smiled back, remembering her words to him on their first encounter, before quickly resuming his stony façade.
Yeah, maybe nobody does like being alone, he thought. He always thought he liked being alone. Until he met Anna. He had no idea how much he didn't like being alone for meals, in the quiet evenings, on sunny days, in the barn….. His mind began drifting happily to their last encounter in the royal stables a few weeks ago. Anna had cleaned the stables out for him. It had taken her all day. She was filthy and exhausted and yet she still surprised him by cornering him in a stall and making passionate, sweaty, hay covered love to him for most of the evening. His mouth edged up into a smile again at the thought, which quickly evaporated at the very loud announcement of the arrival of prince whomever from the kingdom of who cares.
Kristoff snapped to attention. His eyes focused, his face severe to the point of surly. He resisted the instinct to immediately cross his arms.
The prince was announced and entered the room, gave his formal bows and began engaging Elsa in casual conversation. He didn't even address Kristoff or Anna. Kristoff understood ignoring him, but did not understand ignoring Anna. Everyone knew the Queen had a sister, and she was royalty too. The more the prince talked, the harder Kristoff fought the urge not only to cross his arms, but to cross the room and punch the prince in the face. Like most of them, he was handsome enough, although significantly smaller than Kristoff. He was trim and dressed impeccably. He was well educated and was bragging extensively about his knowledge of the world and the many benefits of aligning with his kingdom. He was so busy bragging in fact, that Kristoff noticed he wasn't asking Elsa any questions or letting her get a word in edgewise. But Elsa's hands were still in her lap, so he remained surly, but still. He glanced quickly at Anna who was looking somewhere between non-plussed and slightly confused at this particular presentation. Kristoff made a mental note to ask Elsa if these days could maybe not go quite so long, clearly both her and Anna were getting tired. As the prince droned on and on about tariffs and trade agreements, Kristoff became increasingly irritated and was unpleasantly reminded of an incident last week in which he had to deal with a similarly offensive personality.
He was used to dealing with men. At their worst they were cruel, selfish and violent. At their best, they were boorish, disgusting and stupid. Often large groups of ice harvesters would get together to go to a particularly dangerous or faraway place to gather ice and this meant spending the night, if not several nights in their constant company. Most of the older harvesters had known Kristoff his entire life. They knew he was loner, a hard worker, an honest man. Rumor had it that he had been raised by trolls, which would have explained a lot, but no one dared ask him if it were true or not. They left him alone and that was that. When word got around that he was somehow involved with the princess, they said nothing but brief offers of congratulations. Kristoff had been in a much, much better mood. He was more jovial and friendly, and if they thought he worked hard before, it was nothing compared to now. If this was a result of his connection to the princess, well, then they were all for it. In the evenings after dinner, when the other young men loved to trade stories about their exploits, Kristoff remained silent, choosing instead to sit quietly by the fire carving tiny wooden figurines with his knife. He had been private and reserved before, but his desire to protect his private life with Anna was fierce by comparison.
It was during one of these trips last week and one of these nights by the fire when a group of the younger guys, several new harvesters included, began talking about women they had met on their travels and their various…. interactions. One of the more obnoxious of the group noticed Kristoff in the background, silently working on a tiny reindeer carving. He stood up and made his way over to Kristoff. The swagger in his step and the sneer on his face gave him away as one of "those guys" Kristoff knew he would simply have to ignore. He had done it many times before.
"Hey Bjorgman. Why so quiet? Don't want to give us the goods on the princess? Not fair listening to all our stories without sharing!" Kristoff ignored him. "Probably because there's nothing to tell!" He continued loudly. This comment was met with some chuckling from a few of the younger guys. "Well that makes sense because what girl would ever want to give you the time of day? They couldn't find their way around that nose of yours and you always smell like your reindeer!" This garnered a fair amount of laughter from the younger group which only emboldened the loudmouth and encouraged him on. Kristoff continued ignoring him. He really couldn't care less what this jerk said about him and so far Kristoff basically agreed with him anyway, he just wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging it. Some of the older men on the other side of Kristoff eyed the young man with annoyance.
"Hey Johansson, clearly Bjorgman doesn't give a damn so why don't you just leave him alone?" one of the older men said, a tone of warning in his voice. Others shifted uneasily in their seats. The younger men looked on excitedly, wondering if Johansson would back down or actually succeed in getting a rise out of Kristoff who was notoriously difficult to fluster. The only one who looked completely unaffected and unconcerned, was Kristoff.
"Because I want to know if all those rumors are true!" Johansson exclaimed, holding his arms out dramatically and gesturing towards Kristoff, "Did he really get lucky with the princess of Arendelle? Because if he did, I feel sorry for him! For his first time being with that scrawny, freckled little thing instead of a….."
But Johansson didn't get to finish that thought. Kristoff stood up so fast, the log he was sitting on rolled back several inches. Before Johansson realized what was happening, Kristoff drew his fist back and slammed him in the mouth as hard as he could. Which was very hard. It knocked him off his feet onto his back. It knocked him out cold. Kristoff stood there for a few seconds with his fist raised ready to strike again if Johansson got up. But he didn't. Kristoff then turned, picked up his knife and reindeer carving and went to his tent. The rest of the men were silent until he had gone. When he was out of sight, a few of the younger men rushed to Johansson's side to try and revive him. He regained consciousness, but his jaw was broken, his nose was bleeding, and he was missing several teeth. The older men went about their business as if nothing had happened, aside from exchanging several satisfied nods.
Alone in his tent, Kristoff inspected the damage to his hand. His knuckles were split open, a result of hitting teeth. But he'd had worse. He laid back on his bedroll and stared up at the roof of the tent, listening to the hushed sounds of the men getting Johansson up and his jaw tied shut and his nose stopped. Johansson would have to leave the group and go back in the morning. His mouth had cost him a lot of time and money. Kristoff would have done it again in a heartbeat. He would have done it if all his knuckles were bruised and bloodied beyond repair. He would still knock down anyone who said anything or did anything unkind to Anna.
He wondered briefly if he had overreacted. Had he let his frustration at not being able to beat the smirk off Hans' face those few months ago, determine his reaction to any man that questioned Anna's worth? No. He thought about Johansson's' words and concluded he had definitely not overreacted. He knew exactly what he was going to finish that sentence with. Comparing Anna to what he thought a "real" woman should be. Yes, Anna was skinny and freckly. And beautiful, and warm and compassionate and loving and…his. It was no one's business what he and Anna did or didn't do. She was beyond precious, she was sacred to him. She wasn't cheap fodder for fireside entertainment. They could say whatever they wanted about him, but he would protect her with his life if he had to. No one would ever hurt her as long as he was around, and he would not tolerate anything disrespectful said about her in his presence.
Back in the great hall, Kristoff's eyes had glazed over, his face expressionless as he recalled last week's events and he began absentmindedly running his left hand over his right knuckles, feeling the ridge of healing scabs. He had told Anna and Elsa he had injured himself in the stables. Having recently been introduced to stable work, Anna wasn't the least bit surprised and Elsa didn't question him. Luckily for him neither one inspected his wounds. If they had, they would have surely seen the teeth marks. He had never lied to Anna or Elsa. But he didn't feel bad about it. They had enough to worry about. He didn't need them concerning themselves over what some stupid nobody ice harvester said about rumors, or worry about him getting hurt or picking fights. Kristoff was, as a rule, very peaceful. If something bothered him he simply ignored it or walked away. He had hardly been in any altercations. But the few he had, pretty much ended the same way as this one. Quickly, and with Kristoff standing over an unconscious body.
Thoughtlessly rubbing his knuckles had, unintentionally, the same outcome as crossing his arms. The boastful prince stuttered in the middle of his long winded story about his world travels and uneasily glanced at what he interpreted as a menacing threat. His eyes narrowed and quickly sized Kristoff up. He wasn't dressed like royalty, but he wasn't dressed common either – Anna had finally found a tailor that met with Kristoff's approval that made him very nice formal clothes that weren't royal and were cut large enough for Kristoff's frame and allowed him to move and breathe freely. Despite being unable to place him in the social pecking order, the prince concluded, as they all did, that this man, whoever he was, was not only very large, but was also clearly here under orders of the Queen and therefore must be of some importance to her. He therefore quickly summed up his proposition and bowed himself flamboyantly from their presence, sweeping out of the hall with a dignified sniff.
The advisors came tumbling out of the adjacent room with the usual moans and groans although Kristoff couldn't understand why seeing as how he hadn't crossed his arms. They began scolding him about his knuckles and it dawned on him what had transpired. He chuckled unconcernedly before glancing at Elsa to gage her reaction and was met with a grateful look that said – thank you for reading my mind! Well, that worked out, he thought.
They were done for the day. Elsa slumped wearily down in her throne and began massaging her temples as her advisors continued to pepper her with a barrage of questions and opinions about Kristoff's questionable behavior and the potential benefits of one or more of the suitors. Anna and Kristoff stood patiently waiting for her until Elsa gave them a weak smile and waved them on without her. Gratefully they turned from the hall, Anna took Kristoff's arm and they headed back to their rooms to change and rest until dinner, discussing the various gentlemen that they had met that day. Anna couldn't help but laugh as Kristoff found something inane and negative to say about every single one of them and she ran her fingers softly over his scuffed knuckles as they strolled down the hall. Kristoff smiled down at Anna and squeezed her hand. She was right. Nobody wants to be alone. Not even him. Especially not him. He briefly considered his knuckles. She was worth it. And so much more.