The frigid air gradually grew even colder as day transformed into night, the sun beginning its descent behind the mountains to make itself scarce for the evening. Neither Kristoff nor Anna had spoken a single word during their trip up the mountain. Even Sven was uncharacteristically quiet, obediently pulling the sleigh and its passengers along at a trotting pace. The sky darkened around them, the only light being the yellow glow of the sled's lantern, the only sound being the sloughing of reindeer hooves through the crisp, white snow.
"How're you feeling today?" Kristoff asked at last, eager to break the silence that had lasted between them for hours. When Anna only shrugged in response, too engrossed in watching the landscape as it passed, the mountain man pressed further.
"Was Elsa mad?"
"Why would she be?" the princess replied evenly. She still faced away from him, arms crossed, trying her best to be appear wholly nonchalant and unfazed by the fact that she had to go on this journey, alone with the man she had mixed, confusing feelings for.
Kristoff sighed. "Look, I didn't mean for last night to happen the way it did."
"Sure."
"We both had a lot to drink, and–"
"Yup."
"–things got heated, and–
"Uh-huh."
"–out of hand quickly, and–"
"Please just stop talking, Kristoff. You're going to make this trip way more miserable than it needs to be."
The ice man yanked upward on the reins suddenly, causing Sven to skid to a jolty halt. Anna shrieked as she was thrown forward, bracing herself against the frame of the sleigh. Kristoff turned in his seat to face her.
"I'm sorry, Anna. Okay? I'm sorry. I really, really am." His tone was pleading, dripping with frustration. It surprised the princess to see him so frazzled by her. "The last thing I want to do is hurt you. That's the last thing I ever wanted to happen. I just– I care for you, Anna. A lot. I don't want to ruin things, or mess this up ag–"
He caught himself before he almost let the word "again" slip, and Anna eyed him quizzically. Kristoff rubbed his face with both gloved hands. He took a deep breath before speaking again.
"Can we just… start over?"
Oh, the irony of those words. How many chances did he need to get things right?
How many chances would he get?
Anna took a pause, her eyes narrowed to suspicious slits, mulling his plea over in her head. She didn't want to be in this situation just as much as he didn't. It was awkward, and tense, not to mention emotionally exhausting, and Anna still had a nagging feeling that there was something between them, or that something had happened between them in the past, and she was as determined as ever to find out what that something was.
After a minute of thinking, the princess projected her open palm outward and sideways.
"Hello, my name is Anna," she said, almost playfully, allowing a small smirk to grace her lips. It must've been the most beautiful smile the mountain man had ever seen. Grinning himself, he took her hand in his own and shook it gently.
"My name is Kristoff. Nice to meet you."
–
It was nearly an hour after sunset when they pulled up to the trading post to recoup supplies for the night. The tiny brass bell above the door tinkled their arrival when the pair walked in, with Kristoff following behind his princess. A jolly, red-faced man in a patterned jumper and matching woollen cap sat behind the counter, his blue eyes sparkling with excitement at the arrival of the visitors.
"Yoo-hoo," he chortled, wiggling his fingers in greeting. Before he could utter another word, however, recognition dawned on the man's round face at seeing his favorite member of the royal family inside of his humble little shop.
"An-na!" he cried out in a singsong voice, sidestepping the counter in order to rush over to the aforementioned woman, crushing her in a bear hug before she could protest. Pointing a single finger, she tapped his back with what little arm movement she could muster in his vice-like embrace.
"Um, excuse me, sir…"
The man unwrapped himself from around her and stepped back from the princess, noticing for the first time that Kristoff was standing behind her. His eyes grew dark.
"You," he growled in the direction of the mountain man. Anna looked back at Kristoff, then back to the larger man, and then back again.
Kristoff smirked and waved, exuding a cocky air. "Hey Oaken, what's happenin'?"
The man called Oaken carefully pushed Anna aside with a large hand, approaching Kristoff with his shoulders squared. He loomed over the ice man easily, the sparkle in his eyes now replaced with something a bit more sinister. Kristoff hadn't prepared for this. In fact, he hadn't even thought of it. His confidence waned.
"I mean– it's so good to see you! You look fantastic. Have you lost weight? I know I still owe you for those carrots. I promise I'll pay once I get my next ice shipment in."
"Why is the princess here with the likes of yoo?" Oaken boomed, staring the smaller man down. The venom in his voice was practically betrayed by the goofy inflection he emphasized on the final syllable.
Kristoff raised both hands, palms up, in surrender. "Whoa, buddy. We're just here on business, nothing more. A favor to the Queen. She asked me herself."
"Yoo hurt her," Oaken continued, ignoring whatever it was Kristoff had said. "I will hurt yoo."
The heavyset man threateningly cracked his knuckles and advanced on Kristoff.
"Hey– Oaken, was it?" Anna interrupted, putting herself between the two men, her arms spread wide on either side for defense. "Why don't we all just take a minute and think about this? Now, I'm not sure who he hurt or what happened, but I need him in one piece to take me to see the Trolls so that I can get my memory back. So, if you could just, like, save the beating for another day, I'd really appreciate it."
At her penultimate sentence, Oaken blinked, his normal persona emerging from his aggressive stupor. Where his eyebrows had just been furrowed in unbridled animosity, they were now arched in tempered curiosity.
"Yoo've lost your memory, dear?" Oaken asked, his voice returning to its usual friendly tone.
Anna nodded. "Yes, and Kristoff is telling the truth. My sis– err, the Queen– truly did ask him to bring me out here."
Oaken scrunched his mouth, pensive for a moment. "So, yoo don't remember him?"
Anna shook her head.
"Yoo don't remember… me?" Oaken's lower lip trembled.
Anna again shook her head, sadly.
"No. I'm sorry. I can't help it."
"But yoo don't remember… him?" The hefty man pointed directly at Kristoff this time, who was trying his best to signal with his eyes that Oaken should stop talking. Now.
But Oaken was too clever for that. He narrowed his eyes.
"Anna, dear, please take some time in the sauna. It is good for yoo! Mind, body, and spirit." He patted the red-haired princess on the head like one might a child and began to steer her towards the back of the store. "Maybe help with your memory, yes?"
"Ooh, a sauna?" Anna mused aloud, her interest piqued.
Kristoff tried to stop her, desperate to not be left alone with the hostile man, but was easily brushed aside by both Oaken and Anna on her way to the sauna door.
–
The time Anna spent in the sauna felt like an eternity to Kristoff, who passed the time sitting in fear on a stool near the front door while Oaken glared holes into the back of his head.
"I, uh, like what you've done with the place." Kristoff offered. The angry man only continued to stare menacingly.
The tension in the air was palpable. To ease his anxiety, Kristoff tried drumming his hands on his knees, but when he felt the unspoken friction between the two men reach an uncomfortable boiling point he stood and moved for the door.
"I better go check on Sven," he explained, fixing his dark hat to his head, opening the door to the chilly night air. In a flash, Oaken was up on his rather big feet, slamming the door back closed with Kristoff's hand still on the knob.
"I don't know vhat yoo think yoo're doing," Oaken strained. Evidently using all of his restraint to not pummel the smaller man to a bloody pulp. "But if yoo do anything to the princess, I will kill yoo myself, ja?"
Kristoff gulped. "Ja, I don't doubt you will."
Oaken's eyes took on a sorrowful look. He touched his fingertips together, tenting his hands.
"That girl loved yoo, and yoo broke her heart. I have never seen a person so broken, ja? When she came in here crying about vhat yoo did to her–"
Kristoff snapped his head towards Oaken.
"Wait, wait, wait. What do you mean she came in here?"
"Ja, last week. The princess came in here. She was not herself, speaking gibberish–" he paused, pointing towards a shelf on the far end of the wall. "She picked up some snow boots and began wailing, talking about how much she loved yoo."
"Oaken. We broke off our engagement last year. She's been at the palace ever since. She wouldn't have been here last week."
The bulging man's eyes went cold. "Are yoo calling me a liar?"
Kristoff shook his head. "No, no. Of course not."
He thought for a moment. "Unless…"
Unless it had something to do with her disappearance and subsequent poisoning.
The blonde-haired man jumped up from his seat, grabbing Oaken by the shoulders. "Was there anyone with her?"
"Noo, the princess vas all by herself. I tried to get her to stay here, but she started screaming and ran out of the door."
"Did you have any… strange customers last week or the week before?" Kristoff urged, desperate for answers. "Anybody who seemed odd or suspicious or out of place?"
Oaken thought for a moment. "Ja, there was a couple gentlemen who came in together from out of town. Tourists."
"Tourists? In the middle-of-nowhere mountains in late autumn? Come on, Oaken. Seriously." Kristoff rolled his eyes. "She was only behaving that way because she was poisoned. I need to know who those men were because they might have had something to do with–"
"Who's been poisoned?" came a concerned voice. Both men looked up to see Anna, standing just outside the sauna door with a linen towel wrapped around her torso.
Oaken opened his mouth to answer but Kristoff stood quickly to intercept him, struggling to speak as he took in the sight of Anna in the nude, her freckled skin lush and pink from the effects of the steam. Her lips were wet and full, and her damp hair stuck to her forehead; she looked thoroughly sexed up, and it made the mountain man's cock twitch in his trousers.
"No one, Anna," Kristoff lied, swallowing. "Get your things and we'll go."
With trepidation, Anna nodded and disappeared from view. Kristoff let out the anxious breath of air that he'd been holding, trying to clear the incredibly arousing image of of the princess from his mind, but he couldn't help but focus on one detail that Oaken had told him: that even in her delirious, feverish, poisoned state-of-mind, Anna still loved him.