The brush lazily swept over the newly-built set piece as Anna propped her head on her arm. She really should've been focusing more on painting seeing as this was one of the more elaborate pieces that added to the storytelling part of an act, but her eyes were glued on Elsa instead, who was rehearsing her ice ring bit. She was entranced with the way Elsas hips swayed. Left, right, left, right— it looked like she was doing this on purpose! Which Anna quickly realized, god, she probably was. It was a performance after all, and Anna needed to reign herself in.
"You like her, don't you?"
Anna's arm gave out under her and she went into full-on karate attack mode, which probably would've been way more impressive had she ever actually taken karate. She looked to her would-be assailant to find Kristoff towering over her.
"Oh, hey." She slumped down and lowered her makeshift weapon, the wet paintbrush.
"You've been painting the same spot for a while. Need some help? Or... some of those blinders they use on horses so they can focus?" He cocked an eyebrow.
"Har har. Don't take this wrong, but how much help could you really be?" She pointed at his arm in the sling and went back to painting, actually painting and not staring at Elsa.
"I've got one working arm."
Anna was kinda sweaty and tired from having worked for a few hours by this point and was honestly behind schedule because of all of her leering, so it didn't really take much to convince her that, yeah, extra help couldn't hurt. Even if it was from a one-armed dude. She nodded her head at the open paint can and with great effort, Kristoff kneeled by her to get started. Her painting area was about halfway done —okay, maybe a quarter of the way done, but she had a deadline so to hell with it— when she couldn't ignore the sound of Kristoff's annoying ass arm sling sliding around.
"So, how'd your arm get fucked in the first place?"
It seemed like he was expecting her to ask 'cause he immediately answered, "I fell onto it."
"Some fall."
"Well in my defense, it was a hundred foot drop that I seriously miscalculated."
"If you jumped off a cliff, you coulda just said so. I would've thought better of you."
"Really?"
"No. What kind of idiot jumps off a cliff?"
He laughed. "Yeah. Got me there." After he spoke, he got all quiet and contemplative, lowering his paintbrush with a sigh. "It wasn't a cliff. It's embarrassing. I— I dunno. I was doing some gymnastics training."
"You do gymnastics?"
"Not even a little. But I wanted to try to branch out to try and be something amazing like a gymnast, because all I am at the end of the day is just some guy with a puppet. Don't tell Sven I said that." Anna didn't want to make any promises she couldn't keep so she kept quiet and he continued. "I went to this training session and we did a lot of little beginner things, and I really wanted to do some advanced stuff like the high dive— you know the thing where they jump into an inflatable landing pad— but the guy told me that they reserve that for the last day of class, and I'm in a circus. A traveling circus. I can't wait for the last day to roll around. So I snuck up to the top of this high jump after our session. I assumed it would be like landing on a nice pillow, and y'know, maybe it would've if I knew how to land. Instead, I plummeted like a rock and landed right on my arm."
"At least it wasn't your puppeteering arm."
"Oh, it was."
"You're like a walking PSA," she tsked at him.
He didn't reply. He just looked embarrassed and even possibly sad. Anna couldn't stand to see him look that pathetic, so she abandoned the set piece and put her wet brush on his sling.
"Hey! Woah, what are you doing?"
"Painting. Your cast is boring."
He rolled his big eyes and relented. "Fine. Make it good though, I only have one of these."
She could've made it good. But this was Kristoff, so she aimed for dorky. After a quiet moment of painting, she spoke up. "You're not just a guy with a puppet, you know."
"Everyone else can do such awesome stuff. Oaken can literally pick someone up and throw them like a football. Flynn can do his jumping shit. Olaf and Rapunzel were just born cool. Elsa's, well, you know. She's Elsa. All I've got is a puppet."
He sounded so dejected and even though Anna barely knew this guy, somehow, she knew that he deserved to be here. She huffed, her brow furrowing in distaste.
"Why do you have these insecurities? You had to learn to do the things you're good at. Talent isn't born, it's learned and you had to work for this."
Kristoff harrumphed. "Yeah, okay."
"I'm serious. The circumstances that led you here were your own doing. Your own talent. And you don't just have a puppet, you've got a permanent best friend."
"You're gay."
"Yeah, yeah. Painting's done."
She stepped back partially to give him space (but mostly in case she needed to make a quick getaway) and he craned his neck to get a good look at the front of his sling to reveal—
"—A clown?!"
Anna burst into obnoxious laughter. It was a clown with the trademark red mouth and nose, white face and buck teeth, and honestly looked a little like Olaf. Instead of being angry and clobbering her with his ridiculous-looking cast, Kristoff too began to laugh. It was a big belly laugh that was loud enough to garner the attention of most everyone in the room, and infectious enough to have others join in, including Elsa, who hid her little laughter behind a hand. Anna locked eyes with her and immediately Elsa whipped her gaze elsewhere before Anna could even wave at her.
While Kristoff was busy showing off his newly-stylish cast sling, Anna made her way over to Elsa. She had a good moment with Kristoff and so maybe, just maybe she could have thirty seconds of courage to get to the bottom of this.
And maybe she'd actually be able to talk to her crush without becoming a puddle of gay.
"Hey, Elsa!" Anna slowed down and tried real hard not to pant from the very short jog.
"Oh, hi."
"So..." Gotta get into this casually.
"So...?"
"So uh, why do I get the feeling you're avoiding me?" Well, so much for casual.
If Elsa was shocked by Anna's bluntness, her face hid it well.
Under Anna's bluntness, she turned away and hugged her midsection "I feel like I really messed things up. I could've hurt you." The last part was kind of quiet and Anna had to search her memories to figure out what the heck Elsa was talking about.
"On that first night? No, everything was fine! It worked out well, anyway. I've got this sweet gig now, thanks to you!"
"Thanks to me." Elsa was straight up talking to the floor now, her arms wrapped so tightly around her petite frame. Anna moved in closer.
"Oh Elsa, what happened wasn't your fault. The stage equipment gave way!"
"Right. The stage equipment..."
That onstage confidence must be an air that she puts on for the performance. All Anna can see was this mouse shrinking into herself and shying away from her. She started to put her hand on Elsa's shoulder, but then thought better of it and retracted her hand.
"I don't blame you for what happened. But if you don't believe me, then fine. I forgive you for the whole thing that wasn't your fault. I'm right here."
Anna gave what she'd hoped was an encouraging smile and not a deranged one. And Elsa finally, finally looked up. Those baby blues still held some sadness in them but—
"Okay."
"Okay?"
Elsa nodded. Then her eyes narrowed and she got a goofy look on her face. "Don't you have some set design to work on? Wouldn't want you to slack off on this sweet gig that I got you."
"Yeah, yeah." She bit her lip and went to go back to her job, when Elsa's voice brought her back once more.
"Hey Anna?" Elsa started to say, waiting for Anna to fully turn around before saying, "thank you."
Anna nodded and smiled all the way back to the set piece while trying not to scream because holy shit they had a real conversation! As she crouched down to get back to painting, she just missed avoiding Kristoff's retaliation as he painted right onto the back of her shirt.