Kristoff

This was life. The wind blew hard and cold against his face, he had Sven by his side, a trusty old ice pick in his hand and over five feet of solid ice under his feet. Everything felt pretty darn great right now… Except for the empty pit in his chest.

He missed it so much. He missed Arendelle with its freshly baked bread and hot meals every day – out here they lived on mostly frozen jerky and carrots or boiled potatoes, he missed the castle with all its big halls and endless potential, he missed his house with the big stable outside the castle walls and he even missed Olaf and Elsa and the conversations they used to have, but more than anything else he missed his princess Anna. He had gotten so used to seeing her every day, going on stupid little adventures and playing with the orphans in the orphanage once a week. He missed her body too, holding her close and drowning in the scent of her hair or planting kisses every square inch of her face and neck when they were alone.

Sven noticed his glum look and puffed at his arm. Kristoff took a carrot out of his sleeve and gave the reindeer a bite.
"You're right Sven, we'll be back to them in no-time. Let's carve ourselves some ice!" He ate the rest of the carrot himself and got to work at the thick ice. Good ice like this could only be found up here at the very top of the mountains during summer, and when he heard of this small frozen lake from a fellow ice-worker he just had to come see it for himself and sure enough – it was one of the most beautiful places he had ever laid eyes on. The mountain tops stood clear white against the bright blue sky, the snow still thick in the middle of summer. The wind was strong up here but the air was clear and fresh and it was absolutely freezing. The four others were hard at work, three of them still working the ice while Thom – a big man with muscle so big you'd think he was born half bull and dark, wild hair, was preparing one of their rare hot and cooked meals. Finding dry firewood and actually getting a fire going was difficult up here after all. The smell of the soup and fried bacon he was cooking made all their mouths water, and Kristoff's stomach made a loud grumbling noise.

He leaned over to heave the block of ice he had freed from the lake up on top of the surface, when suddenly he was jumped from behind and he felt a strong pair of gloved hands lock his own before tying them together with a rough piece of rope behind his back. He tried to yell out but when he looked up he noticed that it was already too late – the others had already been attacked and tied themselves. Only Thom was managing to put up somewhat of a fight, he had torn the first rope apart with his massive arms but now he had to deal with three large men working together to knock him down. Something hard hit Kristoff hard in the back of his head and everything went black.

"Psst, Kristoff! Ey, you wakin' up buddy?"
He opened his eyes reluctantly. His head hurt terribly and the ropes around his wrists had given him bruises that ached when he tried to move his hands. He blinked a few times while he took in the surroundings. He and his team were in a small room, all of them tied up. Thom was sobbing in the corner furthest from the door and from the looks of it Bubby Bloomer, his adoptive younger brother not even half his size was doing all he could to soothe the big man. Ingvar, the oldest of them with 54 years and an unpleasant amount of white hair on his back, was rubbing his feet together in the opposite corner. The one who woke Kristoff was John, a man in his twenties with both compassion, humor and a serious temper, especially if he had been drinking. He was very skilled with ice, pick and axe and never complained about anything, because he hated it when people complained for no reason himself.

Kristoff wondered if he had gotten a wound on his head from the blow that knocked him out, but with his hands tied he could not reach the painful area to examine it. Instead he gave the ropes holding him as good and long a tug as he could. The pain made his eyes tear up but he pressed his lips together and kept trying to loosen the knots all the same. Ingvar gave him a long, cold stare from across the room.

"Pull and wiggle all you like, child. Them ropes won't be budgin' no time soon." He said. Kristoff ignored him at first but he soon realized the old man was right. The more he pulled the tighter the grip around his wrists seemed to become. He sighed, annoyed over this unpleasant development.
"Come on, old man. Couldn't you at least try to be positive for once?" He asked.
"Ain't no matter of positive or negative. I know a thing or two 'bout knots and this is one o' 'em that are made to make struggle futile." Ingvar spat on the floor. Kristoff tried to come up with some clever response but he had yet to form the sentence in his head when the door of the room unlocked and opened.

The sudden light stung all four pair of eyes after being kept for hours inside their dark confinement. A large man with a big black beard and the most majestic chin Kristoff had ever laid eyes on walked inside, balancing five plates of hot beans on his plump arms. He placed them carefully on the floor in the middle of the room, and Kristoff felt his mouth water at the sight and scent of hot food.
"Yah'll will be spendin' the next couple o' days in here. Better eat up and make yourselves comfortable, eh?" The big man said with what looked like a smirk. It was rather hard to see his mouth under all that beard.

"Why are you doing this to us? Where are we?" John demanded. Their captor turned his eyes to John.
"Smelly lad over there, we kno' who he is. Spotted you lot comin' up the mountain tops and followed you. This is our territory, no royal lover boy's got any business up here 'less he plans to give us modest robber folk a good opportunity to claim ransom." Now the man was smiling, and without a doubt it was not a kind grin on his lips. Kristoff bit his lip in frustration. This was no good. If they sent a messenger to the city with a ransom for him Anna would come rushing the second she heard he was in trouble. At the very least he hoped that she would have enough sense to bring an escort of soldiers and pay the ransom peacefully, but knowing her she might just storm out all on her own to come save him herself. Either way, perhaps there was still some hope of him convincing the robbers to not send any message in the first place. After all he was just a low-born ice worker, not even a real member of the royal family… The last thought caused a painful throb to go through his heart and he wanted to slap himself. No, this was not the time to be sulking.

"Ransom? What makes you think you'll get a ransom for us? We're just simple ice workers." Ingvar snorted and spat.
"Oh yeah? It ain't no secret this one's the princess Anna's." The man said and shoved one of his big, unwashed fingers up Kristoff's face. "The entire kingdom knows 'bout her and her ice workin' prince charmin'."
"But, see that isn't me." The lie slipped out of his mouth smoothly. Finally an opening he might be able to grasp. "I've only ever seen the princess from a distance. Besides I… I already have a wife." The man raised the one solid eyebrow that reached all the way across his forehead into a somewhat amusing-looking shape. Like a black, hairy rainbow.

"A wife, you say? What's her name?"
"An… Annabelle. Yes, Annabelle. Ahaha, that's probably why you think I'm the princess's, Annabelle and Anna are pretty similar names! Easy to get mixed up!" Kristoff tried his best to make sure his face would not reveal the lie, but it was hard not to tense up knowing that it would only take the big man half a second to clench the hand he had pressed against his nose into a fist, and then slam said fist into Kristoff's face. The big man thought for a few seconds, then pulled his hand away from Kristoff's face, leaving it unharmed.
"Well… Be it true or false, don't think I'll take your word for it, blondie." He said, turned around and stomped out of the room, shutting and locking the heavy door behind him.

Kristoff took a deep breath. He had done everything he could for now. He remembered the cooked beans and bounced over to the plates on his bottom. He slid a plate to each of his fellow captives and kept one for himself. Now, all he had to do was figure out how to get the beans into his stomach with this limited use of his hands. He was not completely compelled to follow Thom's example and shove his face down against the plate and scoop the food up with his mouth but need has no law, especially not that of the stomach.

This sucked. This situation as a whole really sucked troll-balls. Judging by the changes of the little light coming out the curtained window placed right underneath the ceiling Kristoff guessed about a day had passed, as the light was orange like when the sun sets... Or rises. He had already had to empty his bladder twice in an already overflowing bucket. He could live with the stench of it earlier, but then their dear Thom had run out of stamina and had to relieve his colon of the portions of beans and grain right in front of his friends. All five of them now sat huddled up in the opposite corner, desperately trying to get as far away from the source of stink as they possibly could.

Kristoff had tried to get some sleep but as soon as he closed his eyes the panic crept up on him: where on earth was Sven? He had left the reindeer in the forest, about ten minutes away from the lake where they worked. There was no helping it, that far up it was tricky to find vegetation that Sven could eat and the trees had the most moss there. If the robbers had found him, Sven would be captured or hunted himself, and Kristoff did not even want to think about what they might do to the poor beast once they got a hold of him. On top of that, he prayed that Anna would never hear from the robbers, and thought maybe he could escape, find Sven and then head down the mountain in time… But then again he could not just leave his crew up here, they would have to all escape together. Furthermore…

Suddenly, Ingvar stood up and attached the piece of rope that had been around his wrists to his belt. The four others stared at him, in total awe. The old man turned around and started untying John with a wide grin.
"I told you, children. I kno' a thing or two 'bout 'em knots."