Everytime I close my eyes, I can touch the colors around me
Suddenly, I realize everything I thought was impossible is here
And my heart sings in a world so incredible
And everything burns much brighter
Cider Sky, "Northern Lights"
–
After only a few short weeks, Anna had begun to rise consistently with the birds.
She had gotten better at helping Kristoff with the cooking and laundering; the callouses that had begun to form on her palms were evidence enough that she was no longer a delicate and pampered princess. She had even learned to stop itching for a bath anytime a thin layer of sweat and filth formed on her sun-kissed skin after a hard day of work.
Her skills at the loom had greatly improved as well, evident by Bulda's appreciative hum when Anna held out her work for her to inspect.
Together, Anna and Kristoff spent many nights talking around the fire in his longhouse, discussing everything from family to politics, and their differences regarding things like culture and religion, learning more and more about one another with each passing day. When it was time for sleep, Anna would make her way to the bed while Kristoff went outside to sleep in the stables; Anna felt guilty for taking his bed, but she said nothing. It felt silly, but she found herself… missing him at night. She knew that anything more or less than sleeping in separate rooms wouldn't be proper, but it was a small comfort to know that he'd always be there in the morning to wake her, regardless.
Either way, it was a comfortable routine.
The day was warm and sunny when Anna stepped outside to make her way to the center of the homestead, a basket dangling from her elbow. When she arrived, the women were already hard at work, grinding corn into flour on the millstone; today they'd be making the bread that would feed every family on the homestead for the next week.
Anna took her usual seat between Bulda and Inga, the latter of which was heavily pregnant and about to burst any day. The Frankish princess had been surprised to learn that she was the same Inga whose dresses she had been given when she had first arrived at Svensholm; although, upon seeing her in such a state of breeding, Anna understood why she had no longer needed the dresses in the first place. She was taller than the other girls, but liked her dresses cut short, which is why the length had suited Anna's petite frame so perfectly. Her stark blue eyes were darker than Anna's own, and they sparkled with mirth when Anna sat down beside her.
"Overslept again?" the woman joked in Franconian with a flip of her ashy blonde hair, causing Anna to roll her eyes. The first few mornings at the homestead had been rough on the Frankish princess, as she had never been one to awaken before the sun, and now it was an inside joke among the women.
"Nei (No)," Anna replied defensively. "Kristoff had a hole in his breeches that needed mending before he went out to the fields, lest the full moon make an appearance in the daytime."
"Ladies, less talking, more briðja (grinding)," Bulda chastised affectionately, pointing at the millstone with a thick finger. Anna and Inga giggled and resumed their work.
Inga leaned in towards Anna and lowered her voice to a whisper: "So, did Kristoff bíta (bite) your kunta (cunt), yet?"
Anna's face flushed red. She didn't know many Norse words yet, but she knew that one, the dirty one, as Inga liked to throw it around frequently. Such a vulgar woman; Anna supposed that's why she liked her– that, and the fact that she was the only woman in the village besides Bulda who spoke Franconian well enough to converse.
"Shhh," Anna hushed her friend, glancing at Bulda out of the corner of her eye. "Kristoff's mother is sitting right there. She'll hear you."
Inga's eyes lit up. "So he did finally make a dishonorable woman out of you?"
"No! It's not like that between us."
Inga pfft'd. "I knew he wouldn't touch you. He's much too honorable to take a woman before marriage."
Anna raised a brow and eyed the other woman's bulging belly. "And your husband wasn't?"
"My Sven was quite the kveldúlfr (wolf who hunts at night) before I snared him," Inga replied smugly, dusting her hands on the front of her frock. "But never Kristoff. They may be as close as brothers, but they couldn't be more different."
Anna stared at her friend in disbelief. "You can't tell me that Kristoff has never been with a woman."
"Nei. He's never taken a brúðr (bride), and he probably never will." Inga's eyes turned sad. "I don't blame him. He lost his family so young to the invading Danes, it's only natural that he'd never want to risk going through that again. Once is enough mein (pain) for a lifetime– even for a man as rammr (strong) as he is."
"But the joy of having a family far outweighs the chance of any misery, surely," Anna mumbled as her focus trailed out over the fields where the men were planting grain crops, searching for Kristoff's hunched back. When she spotted him, his golden hair shining and the muscles of his shoulders rippling in the sunlight, she felt her heart calm.
Inga shrugged. "He wouldn't know."
"That's why he needs someone to show him," Bulda interjected suddenly as she rounded the millstone; she was easily as strong as two or three women, and was able to single-handedly turn the wheel that rolled the stone over the grains as Anna and Inga placed them in the base. "And I think Anna is just the woman to do it. He's grown fond of you– I can tell."
"Oh, Bulda, you flatter me," Anna scoffed awkwardly with a guffaw, feeling her face redden even further. She damned her fair skin. "But you've raised a good man. You should be very proud of him."
Bulda beamed with pride. "Yes, he is a drengr."
"A what?"
"Drengr," Bulda repeated, pausing her work. "He knows right from wrong. Respectful, honorable, and always does the noble thing– that's my sonr (son). I am very proud."
"It's the highest compliment you can pay someone in our society," Inga explained, leaning over to whisper in Anna's ear.
" " Anna repeated, committing the new word to her memory. "Where I'm from we just call that 'being a good Christian.'"
Almost immediately, the Frankish woman slapped a hand to cover her mouth, eyes widening in shame at the offensiveness of her own statement; her face burned as if she had stuck it directly into the coals of a cooking fire.
"Oh, goodness, I'm so sorry. I don't mean– I didn't mean– I'm–"
Bulda and Inga exchanged glances before bursting into respective fits of hysterics, clearly amused by Anna's blunder.
"You really are feisty," the older woman chuckled with a gleam in her eye. "It must be the fire in your hair.
"Is that what Kristoff told you?" Anna half-laughed as she nervously tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, which she was sure was as bright of a shade of scarlet as her face. "What else did he say?"
Bulda opened her mouth to answer, but before she could speak she was cut off by a commotion from out beyond the fields. When Anna turned to look in the direction of the noise, she watched as a gang of Viking men on horseback crested the hill at the edge of the homestead, led by none other than the large, redheaded man whom Anna had previously presumed to be the chieftain.
Inga was up on her feet before the others; a protective hand came up instinctively to rest on her belly.
"Go," Bulda commanded from beside Anna in a hushed, panicked tone.
The young woman swallowed with difficulty. She knew she had to run– Kristoff had told her so, had made her promise.
But she had also promised Elsa that she wouldn't do anything to get herself killed, and then had gone right ahead and broken that promise by punching a Norseman– who surely wouldn't have thought twice about killing her– square in the face. Her heart hammered painfully in her chest, tortured by the indecision to run or to stay and make sure Kristoff would be alright.
"But, what about Kri–"
"Go, now!"
Bulda gave Anna a shove, causing her to stumble briefly forward. When she looked back to the place in the fields where she had last seen Kristoff, he was gone.
She didn't need to be told a third time. Anna hiked up her pale blue skirt and bolted in the opposite direction of the approaching horde, running as fast as her legs could carry her towards the trees behind Kristoff's house. She was reminded of Gerda's ghostly words to keep her eyes straight ahead, and this time she obeyed, never once stopping until she reached the pool in the middle of the wood.
Without the slightest hint of hesitation, Anna inhaled sharply and dove headfirst into the cold water.
–
"Kristoff!"
Kristoff's head snapped up at the sound of Sven's voice calling his name from the direction of the fields. The brown-haired man waved his arms to get his attention as he ran over to where Kristoff was returning from the river– where he had gone to have a drink and splash cool water on his face and neck, eager for a reprise from the backbreaking work of planting grain and for some sort of relief from the midday sun– and where he had accidentally fallen asleep when he had laid down in the cool grass along the bank to listen to the soothing rush and babble of the current.
Kristoff damned himself when he awoke to find that he had been out for over an hour, but he decided that he'd make up for it by skipping lunch and staying out in the fields an extra hour past sunset. He knew he wouldn't be as tired as he was if he and Anna hadn't stayed up talking so late the previous night, but he wouldn't have it any other way; having the Frankish girl around, even just to help with domestic duties, was a nice change of pace.
When at last the man reached Kristoff, he bent forward, resting his hands on his knees to support himself as he caught his breath. Even bowing, he was still almost as tall as Kristoff himself– just a head short.
"Sven, what is it?" Kristoff asked his friend in Norse.
"Ulf and his brothers," Sven panted. "They were here. They've just left."
Fresh fear trickled through Kristoff's veins. "What did they come for? And Hans? Was he with them?"
Sven shook his head regretfully. "I'm not sure."
"Anna." He uttered her name on instinct; she was in danger, and that knowledge alone caused Kristoff to lose himself, until the very core of his being was consumed by nothing but thoughts of her and her safety.
He turned to Sven: "Where's Anna?"
"I don't know– no one's seen her."
Glancing up, Kristoff looked towards the center of the homestead, squinting his eyes to see better, searching for her telltale red-gold braids amongst the women who chattered anxiously around the millstone, but she was no longer there; she was gone. His panicked heart skipped a beat.
Kristoff's mind spun as white-hot adrenaline began to pump through him like fire, engulfing everything in its wake.
Did they find her? Did they take her?
Have I failed to protect her again?
Kristoff knew his friend wouldn't be offended when he turned and ran without a word of farewell, leaving Sven forgotten behind him as he sprinted towards the trees.
Please, be safe.
He made it to the footpath behind his house and kept running, leaping and hurdling over fallen tree limbs and low-lying branches, unwilling to lose his momentum.
Please, don't let me be too late.
He didn't stop until he reached the edge of the pool, skidding to a stop with a spray of dirt and pebbles. His wide eyes scanned the glittering surface, searching for any sign of life beneath the water, hoping and praying for her freckled, smiling face to appear.
"Anna!" he called out, his evident desperation leaking into his voice. "Anna!"
I can't lose her, I can't…
A tree at the opposite end of the pool rustled with movement; gingerly, the redheaded girl stepped out from behind it, hugging herself. She was soaked to the bones, her sodden hair matted to her face and dripping down her neck and clavicle in rivers to disappear into her breasts, her woolen dress– heavy with water– clinging heavily to every curve of her trembling body.
"You took too long," she scolded, pouting her lips. "I can only hold my breath for so long."
A wave of intense relief washed over Kristoff. Before he could even process the feeling– his focus only on Anna and the fact that she was here, alive and unharmed– he stole forward, into the pool, and crossed it in haste to get to her, wading through the water with his burly stature as easily as one cuts through butter with a hot blade.
Anna continued her derision of Kristoff's timing. "My skin started to wrinkle, like a grape left out in the sun. Plus, that water is still damn cold! I was already completely numb by the time I–"
Kristoff cut her off abruptly by crushing her to him when he reached her, pulling Anna into an embrace, hugging her warm, wet body against himself tightly as his arms wrapped around her back and held her there. He had never touched her before– save for the occasional, accidental brushing of hands whenever they worked together– and had never even dared to dream of it prior to this moment, but it seemed natural now, considering the circumstances. She felt so good in his arms– with her head tucked beneath his chin, her cheek resting against his heartbeat– that it both thrilled and terrified him at the same time.
"I'm sorry, Ǫndōttr Brók, I'm so sorry– I should have been here sooner," he murmured into her damp hair, squeezing her tighter to him. "Fyrirgef mik (Forgive me)."
Anna tensed before relaxing into him, allowing herself to be held. "Of course. There's nothing to forgive, Kristoff– but only if you finally tell me what Ǫndōttr Brók means."
Kristoff pulled back and smiled down at his companion. Ǫndōttr Brók was the affectionate pet name he called his princess whenever she was acting brave or reckless or stubborn; he liked to tease her with it, and watch the way she riled up and flustered when he refused to tell her what it meant. It was like a little game between them, one that always ended with either one or both of them blushing.
"Ǫndōttr Brók," he started, repeating his nickname for her as he gazed into her blue eyes and reached up to brush the waterlogged curtain of hair away from her face. "Means 'Feisty Pants.'"
–
A/N: Ǫndōttr Brók literally actually means "Fiery Breeches," which is even funnier tbh.