Characters in this chapter: Kristoff and Anna.
2. Rococo
There is only one word to describe her kisses: electrifying. When she kisses him, he can feel his skin ignite. Everything around him suddenly crumbles. The mountains break apart. The fjords flood with massive waves crashing upon him. He does nothing to stop it and instead flows freely along with it. His body burns with touching and his mind brims with thinking – every sensation is caused by the excitement that is her.
When they break apart for the first time, Anna looks back up at Kristoff with bright eyes. He realises he is reflecting her expression – both adoration and trepidation. She smiles softly. Her eyes dart to the side and she pushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear as if wordlessly asking, 'What next?' He probably looks more nervous than she does. He certainly feels overwhelmed.
Kristoff breaks the silence, "Thank you for the sled. And the new title."
"You're welcome," she says very simply. Her smile grows wider and she bites her bottom lip. "But don't thank me, really. You should thank Elsa."
Her kisses are just one of the ways she constantly surprises him. She will nip at his bottom lip one time then steal an unexpected peck at another. He feels like he needs to keep up, but he enjoys every instant of unexpected electricity in his fingers.
As weeks pass and the short summer warmth raises to a comfortable temperature, their kisses morph. Sometimes they briefly touch lips only for an instant. Other times, they melt into each other, desperately holding on and hesitant to let go. Their kisses are sometimes sensual but never suggestive. He enjoys chaste kisses just as much because for some reason, Anna has a tendency to laugh against his mouth and he cannot help but laugh as well. She never explains it, but he guesses it's due to the strange high of their starting relationship. It is when the kiss deepens, does she sigh and fall apart. She is never forceful. He is always patient. He is smitten with her, plain and simple.
They are both inexperienced yet willing to learn from each other. Anna's extremely brief history with the Prince of the Southern Isles does not count – Kristoff does not know if she and Hans had kissed before the Queen had frozen Arendelle (but he assumes 'no', more for his comfort than with actual proof). These moments they share are thus a series of lessons for each of them. He learns the curve of her waist when he holds her and the freckles on her shoulders. He learns she likes chocolates and everything chocolate covered or filled. He learns that while she can't scale mountains or steep cliffs, she strangely manages climbing onto the roofs of the castle with ease.
He learns she loves art.
They are in one of the many rooms in the castle when he discovers this. The walls are covered with paintings, all vibrant and done in masterly strokes. Framed art pieces surround the room, as if attempting to cover as much of the wallpaper as possible. Some of the portraits rest right closer to the bottom, above the wainscoting, while others reach high up, skirting the windows close to the ceiling. Benches line the sides, but their diminutive presence in such a large room make them seem useless, beyond even decorative.
Romantic landscapes display unknown outside worlds. Rococo relishes in frivolity with musical instruments and rosy cheeks. Renaissance is heavier in shades of olive greens and reds. A survey of European Art is held here, all for this new couple's enjoyment.
Anna is on the floor, her arms and legs spread out as if in the midst of making a snow angel. Kristoff lies beside her, eyes shifting curiously amongst the artworks.
If Kristoff can be entirely honest, he considers the paintings beautiful but uninteresting. He has grown so used to abstract beauty in other objects, such as ice, that representation bores him. He has no education in fine art. His only exposure comes in the form of small cheap sculptures and decorated items frequenting the shelves of Arendelle's shops. While Arendelle is a growing kingdom, the arts are still only appreciated by a few. A painting was just a picture to him and nothing more. He knows nothing of any painters, sculptors or philosophers.
Apart from his old sled, objects are never bought for their beauty, only for function and efficiency. In this room with items whose sole purpose is simply to be looked at, Kristoff feels more confused than anything else. He is well aware that Anna finds something special here however, and so he stays with her, enjoying the time spent being close to her.
"What do you call this room?" he asks.
"I don't actually know – I just call it the portrait room."
They lie together in silence, Anna breathing in the joys of being with childhood friends again, Kristoff staring more at the ceiling and the iron chandelier right above them than at the actual pieces.
"So, what'd you think?"
Is she expecting him to give his opinion on art?
He freezes. "Of the room?"
"Yeah, which one's your favourite?"
"Uhh... well they're all nice." He ponders for more descriptive words before giving a defeated sigh. "Ok, I give up. I don't actually know anything about this stuff. They're all great but they're... pictures. This is a room for putting pictures on walls."
"It's more than that," Anna responds without any judgment in her voice as she lightly taps his arm. She throws her hands up like a conductor ready at a concerto. "Just imagine yourself in them."
His eyebrows wrinkle in unsure concentration. "Uh-huh."
"Papa taught me about movements and artists. What belonged when and who painted what. But then I'd just ignore it all and daydream that I was there in the paintings." She waves her hand in the air to brush the metaphorical lessons away. "He also told me I should never touch them, but that didn't work out either. He used to get angry when he'd see my fingerprints."
This is the first time Anna has ever mentioned her parents to Kristoff – no tone of grief, no sign of tears, just pure nostalgia as if they were in the same building in some other room. He turns his head slightly to look at her, but her eyes are lost in the piece in front of her: an overly romantic painting of a couple draped on a picnic blanket. "The best way to enjoy art is to experience art."
"Did you come up with that?" Kristoff asks incredulously with a raised eyebrow.
"No, papa actually taught me that." She gives a guilty cough. "I guess I took it literally. Sometimes, when no one was looking I'd start talking to the pictures."
He gives a short laugh at this as he imagines a young redhead chatting with two-dimensional men and women.
She points to a painting of dancers, a woman trapped in mid-twirl, with stark lighting highlighting her face and her skirt and a man clapping beside her. Despite the stillness of the physical canvas, there is an unexpected vibrancy within the image. One could almost hear the audience's laughter behind the pair and hear the woman's shoes tapping loudly against the floor.
"That's my favourite. It's from a country in the south. I'd like to go there one day, dancing just like that and all these people cheering. I heard it gets really hot there in the afternoon, so hot they have to take naps after lunch." She hums in bliss as if stifling heat is somehow a good thing, something that Kristoff does not agree with. "That guy always dances with her, every night until the sun comes up."
She turns to point in a different direction to a painting of a woman suspended in midair on a swing. "Oh! No wait, that one's my favourite." Behind the painted figure, a man dressed in clothes almost as frilly and ridiculous as hers, pushes her. The woman's pink slipper is flung from her delicate foot and is eternally floating to the side. "I know it sounds kind of crazy but I always wanted to be her too."
"She should probably wear different shoes next time. She looks like you when we were by the lake last week."
"That was not my fault! Who knew there would be bears?!" Anna pouts at this reminder. She raises herself up and looks around as if searching for something. "Joan isn't here."
"Joan?"
"Joan was my best friend, besides Elsa, of course. She used to be right there." Anna points to a painting of an earthly landscape. "She'd tell me all her war stories, right before she was burned at the stake. Before my parents left, she was taken to be cleaned and restored. I don't know what happened to her after that."
Kristoff feels a sudden deep pang in his chest. Though they both had lonely childhoods, his was by choice whereas Anna's was by circumstance. Even so, Kristoff had Sven and the trolls whenever he needed them, but the more Anna had searched for company, the more they seemed to vanish. He is now even more grateful for Elsa's return and the sisters' renewed friendship. As he lies back onto the polished wooden floor, his eyes drifts from one painting to the next, dreaming of Anna's conversations.
A little redheaded ghost runs about the room, making mock-kissy noises at the romantic paintings and chatting endlessly with the regal portraits. She makes a running jump and dives into the landscapes, climbing onto the rocks and looking over the mountains to the undiscovered universe before her. He imagines the fingerprints pressed into the canvas, her oils chemically altering the colours oh-so-very-lightly, too light for the normal human eye, but enough for her father to recognise it and scold the poor girl. The lack of human contact, both figuratively and literally, drives her to keep touching anyway.
The little ghost falls asleep beside Joan, however Joan might look like in Kristoff's mind, while the saint watches over her, protecting her from demons with a raised sword. As she grows older, her tastes change. She suddenly develops an unexpected yearning in any of the paintings of lovers. Though they are permanently stuck in a fixed position in a gilded frame, in that fantasy world they are free. The girl on the swing is forever on holiday. The dancers are always having fun. Even the sly smiles from the more formal portraits hint of a happier life.
He must have drifted too far because Anna's face is suddenly inches away from his with a smart smirk. "See, it's more than that." This room is more than looking at pictures on the wall.
He returns her smile and she moves to kiss him. The electricity buzzes within him. She laughs again against him and mumbles something about tickles. He tastes chocolate. The little devil is sneaking out sweets again.
Notes: I'm assuming the painting of the 'dancers from the southern country' is based on John Singer Sargent's El Jaleo (1882). For simplicity's sake, I didn't go into detail the painting's American origins. Also, from what I remember, Joan is missing from its original position when Anna sings First Time In Forever so I'm hoping for the best that Joan is simply forgotten at the cleaners than lost in some tragedy.
P.S. Don't touch finished paintings with your bare fingers.