The news of the festival spread through Arendelle like wildfire.
The First Annual Royal Festival, Anna had decided, would be a fitting name for the event. It was just exciting enough to satisfy her thirst for the fantastic and just vague enough to keep the humble queen off of her back.
Despite this, Anna made no secret of the festival's true purpose on the posters she had had printed for advertising (which, conveniently, were to be posted around outside of the castle gates where her sister had virtually no chance of seeing them), featuring Elsa's visage front and center. It was clear to the people of Arendelle that the event was a celebration of their returned queen and, Anna hoped, a step forward towards her sister's reintegration into the kingdom.
It was two days before the festival when Kristoff was called upon by the queen to make a peculiar delivery.
"I didn't know that this was part of our job description," Kristoff mused, sitting back stiffly in his seat. He knew that the gently twisting wooded path should have made for a relaxing ride compared to his usual expeditions into Arendelle's colder, more perilous mountainous regions, but he had trouble getting comfortable in the gifted sled. Somewhere deep down he knew that he was just worried about damaging the new vehicle - the trolls had never treated him with many gifts - but he had convinced himself that there was just something about the way it bounced when mounted on wheels that kept the ice master perpetually on his toes.
"It isn't," Kristoff spoke for Sven, who would've been too exhausted to talk even if he were able to, presently struggling to pull the fully-loaded sled down the worn path. "But this was a request from Queen Elsa."
"Very true, very true, and I think the castle has enough ice for the time being," Kristoff agreed with himself. He gave up trying to rest and turned to look back over the seat at the sled's cargo. "But what is all of this stuff, anyway? There's some firewood and a bunch of other supplies in the back, but what's up with these big boxes?"
The ice master was unable reach most of the tightly-packed, unmarked wooden boxes in the trunk, but could at least manage to flip open the top the container closest to him stacked at the top of the first row.
"Huh?" Kristoff asked Sven, gazing at the opened box full of several simply-labeled pouches. One tag caught his eye immediately. "Carrots?" he read.
The sled came to a sudden halt, the rider's own momentum nearly throwing him off of his seat. A couple of the topmost bags erupted from the opened box, landing just next to Kristoff at the head of the sled. Sven looked back to his friend expectantly.
"Hey!" Kristoff said, quickly regaining composure and carefully handling the escaped bags. "Carrot seeds, Sven," he looked at his partner, who whined at the revelation. "Believe me, I'm just as disappointed as you are."
The reindeer started sullenly down the path again.
Kristoff placed the bags back into the box delicately, examining them as he did. "They've got potatoes, too, and wheat."
"Aren't we supposed to be going to a farm?" the ice master gave voice to what he assumed Sven would have asked.
"Yeah, the Daleon Farmstead. You'd think they'd have this kind of stuff covered."
"Queen Elsa's note said it was an emergency delivery."
"Queen Elsa..." Kristoff mumbled to himself (not a rare occurrence) and gazed off at the trees and brush lining the trail.
Summer had returned to Arendelle just as quickly as the queen had banished it to begin with, but it was impossible to ignore the damage that the queen's manufactured winter had done to some of the more feeble wildlife.
The strong Arendellien pines handled the rapid transition well enough, but the summer flowers which had just begun to bloom on the eve of the coronation did not, leaving the kingdom's landscapes looking deceptively barren considering the warm weather. Kristoff hadn't given it a whole lot of thought, but it would make sense for the temperature swings to have had an adverse effect on the Daleons' farming operations given the abrupt interruption to the growing season.
"So that's why she sent us out here, Sven," Kristoff declared, proud of having solved the mystery. "Queen Elsa must be distributing seeds to so many farms that she's run out of people to haul them!"
The ice master, satisfied, turned back around in his seat and was momentarily confused by the light sound that he heard as he did so.
Crinkle.
"The poster!" he realized, shoving a hand into one of his deep pockets to retrieve the thick, rolled-up sheet of paper.
It was one of the advertisements for the festival. Anna had all but decreed that the ice master make it a part of his delivery to the farmstead, worried that the Daleons would be oblivious to the rapidly approaching celebration on account of their infrequent trips into Arendelle proper.
Kristoff slipped the mildly creased poster back into his pocket and made a mental note to remember to give it to the farmers upon his arrival.
It wasn't much longer to the Daleon Farmstead by then. Instead of chatting the rest of the way, both Kristoff and Sven began to hum nothing in particular, the former resigned to the fact that he'd find no relaxation in the gift sled.
The ice master rose to full attention as soon as he saw a fence on the horizon. The tall line of lazily-cut posts stretched far in both directions, disappearing behind the surrounding forest's many trees. A few hundred feet ahead on the path was a gap in the wall: a wiry, rusted metal gate with a single word etched into its face in fanciful script.
"Daleon," Kristoff squinted and read aloud. "So this is the place."
"I don't see anyone."
As the ice master neared the entrance to the farmstead, he could begin to see its fields beyond the fence, split apart only by the continuing path which itself twisted in two directions, leading to both a stable in the back of the property and a simple-looking, single-level house in the center of the plots.
"Hello?" he asked the air.
Reaching the gate and surveying the premises, Kristoff neither saw nor heard anyone who would answer his call.
"Hang on, Sven," the ice master said quietly, dismounting the sled and walking up to open the gate himself. The rusty latch raised with significant effort and an equally significant screech.
"No one's visited here in a while, either," Kristoff thought Sven might have said as he pushed the iron barrier with his shoulder. It put up a good fight, dragging along the dirt below, but eventually pivoted off of the path completely.
"Sure seems that way."
"Maybe they're inside."
With his friend back on the sled, Sven proceeded cautiously through the gate.
Much as Kristoff had hypothesized, the crops of the farmstead looked all but ruined. He didn't see a single living plant as the duo made its approach to the farmhouse. That wasn't to say that he didn't see some dead ones, however. The squared-off plots surrounding the Daleons' home looked just as untended as the gate had. The yield was undoubtedly damaged by Elsa's winter, though it didn't seem as if the Daleons cared enough to clean up the ruin left behind.
"Hello?" Kristoff called again nervously, hoping that his voice would carry into the house now that he was halfway across the property. There was still no response. "Maybe no one's home?"
"Emergency delivery."
"Really?"
Sven pulled the wheeled sled forward until he was almost stepping up onto the house's unstable porch and then looked back at Kristoff with a familiar gaze of expectance.
"Fine," the ice master groaned and hopped down from his seat, walking around the reindeer, up two short, old steps, and to the house's front door.
He hesitated for a short moment and then, prompted by a whine from Sven, knocked.
"Delivery... Delivery from Queen Elsa," he said. "Is anyone home?"
Kristoff heard a mix of quiet groans, murmuring, and footsteps from inside of the house. He was torn over whether he thought any of that was a good thing or not. In a few moments the door before him swung open.
"Hello there."
The woman who greeted him was older - Kristoff guessed that she may have been in her forties, though he didn't have much of a baseline - with a face and body tempered by long days of work in the outdoors and pony-tailed blond hair that had been given bleached highlights by the same token.
The ice master would have liked to say that the woman had a certain air of sophistication about her if such a trait weren't so diametrically opposed to her more obvious raggedy dress and permanent, goofy smile.
"A delivery from the queen, you said?"
"Uh, yeah. Are you Mrs. Daleon?"
"Please, call me Dee," Dee waved her hands and chuckled a bit, deep and rough and roaring.
"Oh, okay," Kristoff blushed instead of joining the woman in laughter. Before long, Dee was watching her guest, seeming to be waiting for something. "I've got your seeds," he said, but it failed to change her expression. "A bunch of other supplies, too."
Dee still waited.
"My name's Kristoff," the ice master offered shakily. He gave the back of his head a nervous scratch.
"Nice to meet you, Kristoff," Dee said, grinning once more. "Seeds, you said? And supplies? That's just what I wanted to hear, let me tell you. Not all has been well on the Daleon front - not since that trick the queen pulled last month."
"I, uh, noticed," Kristoff murmured.
"I scarcely knew how we were going to keep going, considering Ron's illness and my husband's disappearance..." the woman trailed off, but she quickly refocused herself on the guest, not wanting to appear rude. "Some aid will be nice during these tough times."
"Um, right," Kristoff replied. He scarcely knew how he was going to keep going, considering the woman's overt friendliness. The ice master opted to beg for some manual labor to release him from the bonds of conversation. "Where should we unload?"
Dee seemed to think it over for a second, poking her tongue ever-so-slightly out through her lips thoughtfully. "Just bring it all inside and set it right in here. I'll help you."
"Oh, that's not necessary."
"I insist."
"No, please, I-"
"Don't worry, I'm not quite the heavy-lifter I used to be," Dee assured the ice master. She took the initiative to skip out onto the porch and lead the way down the steps and to the backside of the sled. "I'll be leaving the big boxes to you, anyway."
"Right," Kristoff pouted, shooting Sven a dejected glance in passing. He had hoped that the cordial woman would leave him to his work.
Fortunately for him, the unloading process was for the most part devoid of chatter.
Together, the virtual strangers carried box after box into the farmhouse. Despite her previous statement, Kristoff quickly noticed that Dee was incredibly strong for a woman of her size and age, keeping a brisk rhythm as she transported the whole haul of firewood (close to twenty logs) in only two trips before moving on to the boxes of seed.
By the end of the endeavor, the ice master began to worry that she may even begin to outpace him. He had been running on fumes since somewhere around the third box. Dee did not even look to have broken a sweat.
"Fantastic," Dee said once she had gracefully stacked one of the last - and heaviest - boxes on top of the others.
Kristoff struggled into the front room of the farmhouse through the door behind her, grunting as he dropped his own final load to the ground beside the wooden tower. He wiped some sweat from his forehead and sighed in relief, leaning back against the closest wall and taking in his surroundings as he cooled off.
The front room took up roughly two-thirds of the house's floor space and had all of the aspects of a kitchen, lounge, and guest bedroom cobbled together in a confused-looking swirl.
There was an old stove off to the right with accompanying cooking utensils, two buckets, an upside-down open book, and a half-eaten loaf of bread stacked on a short table beside it. A sofa was in the center of the room, its cushions caked with dirt in some places and merely dusted in others. A rag of a rug sat at its feet, and the three handmade, splintered wooden chairs atop it were all similarly dirtied.
The left wall of the room was completely occupied by a makeshift bookshelf that looked like it could fall at any minute, its thrown together foundations bent under the weight of the multitude of volumes that the Daleons seemed to own. There were so many books, in fact, that the bookshelf was unable to hold them all even at its maximum capacity, resulting in a few cluttered piles set up against the wall nearby.
On the far side of the space were little more than two doors, both closed, presumably leading to the Daleons' bedroom and bathroom.
The air in the farmhouse was thick with dust, Kristoff quickly noticed, and the ice master couldn't help but cough a few times when the tiny, dry particles got stuck in his throat as he caught his breath.
"Let me get you some water," Dee said, already over at the small table next to the stove. She opened its sole drawer to pull out a mug. The woman dunked it in one of the buckets and scurried back over to Kristoff, almost thrusting the cup - now full of room-temperature water - into his hands.
"Thanks," he rasped before gratefully gulping down the warm water.
Suffice to say that it didn't help much. Kristoff lost control, his entire tickled chest tightening in a buildup to his loudest cough yet.
"Who's that, Mama?" a gruff, damaged voice called from the back of the house.
The left door on the far wall opened, revealing a tall, unkempt man as the speaker. His hair was long, dark, and greasy, hanging down past his forehead like an shade, obstructing all but a sliver of his eyes and his mouth of split lips. Broad shoulders hung over the rest of his body in a hunched, aggressive posture.
Despite the man's intimidating muscular physique, hidden little by his gossamer stained shirt and long broken-in pants, Kristoff could tell immediately that the animal of a man was ill. His voice was deeper than even his mother's and, more notably, scratchier than any healthy man's. The little that the ice master could see of the beast's face was emaciated and flushed with fever.
"You're awake," Dee said flatly, glancing over to the man for a moment and then quickly back to the guest. "Kristoff, this is my son Ron," she gestured, her voice back to its peppy self. "Ron, this is Kristoff. He's brought us some supplies from the castle."
"From the castle?" Ron asked suspiciously.
"A delivery from the queen," Dee nodded.
Ron closed the door to the bedroom behind him, not so much as making eye contact with Kristoff as he lumbered over to the stacked boxes. He opened one of them, bending over ever so slightly more to look at the pouches within.
"Seeds," he spat, looking sideways to Kristoff. "Seeds from Queen Elsa?"
"Uh, yeah."
"And firewood," the man looked over at the pile of logs that Dee had placed with the Daleons' preexisting stock beside the stove.
Kristoff barely nodded.
"We've got firewood now," Ron said bluntly. "The queen didn't kill most of the trees."
Kristoff gulped. The farmer sounded slightly angry, but what was truly worrying was his rapidly transforming demeanor. The huge man's back had begun to straighten (or at least get as close as it could) and his chest was now puffed out at an odd angle in Kristoff's direction. Ron's eyes locked onto the ice master from underneath their cover of hair.
"Do need seeds," he continued. "She did manage to kill every damn plant we had in the ground. I figure this is her idea of an apology, huh? Well I'd like to-"
"That's enough, Ronald," Dee was suddenly beside her son, a hand placed to his shoulder and squeezing it tight. "Now is not the time nor place," she hissed, "nor company."
They exchanged a look through his vine-like hair and the younger man sighed, dropping back down into his normal, much worse posture. He coughed, but it wasn't a dusty one.
"You understand that Queen Elsa's winter was devastating for our crops," Dee looked to Kristoff now, her hand still perched on Ron's shoulder. "Not to mention my son's health."
"Of course," Kristoff nodded with uncomfortable solemnity.
"My husband William has yet to return, as well," the woman continued, voice wavering. "He left for the castle in the storm one month ago seeking supplies."
"Oh," Kristoff said, his mouth hanging open. He had just made the trip from the castle to the farmstead in a couple of hours. "I'm... I'm so sorry. Is there anything I can do?"
Dee shook her head. "He will be back soon."
The three of them stood in silence for an interval. Kristoff tried desperately not to look at Ron, who continued to watch him, unmoving.
"I should probably go," the ice master told Dee.
The woman stared at him, too, although her gaze was not nearly as hostile as her son's. Once again, she was waiting for something.
"I've got to get back to the castle."
Nothing.
"Thanks for, uh, helping me unload?"
"Don't mention it," Dee finally smiled. Her grin was weaker now, though, and the wrinkles around her mouth less pronounced. She was distracted.
Kristoff had just whirled around and started for the door in a hurry to leave when his hand absentmindedly brushed across a pant leg.
Crinkle.
The ice master stopped in his tracks with a silent curse. The nightmare wasn't over just yet.
"Oh, right," Kristoff said awkwardly, turning back to the mother and son. With one hand he produced the written advertisement for the festival from his pocket. With the other, he scratched the side of his head. "Anna, uh, Princess Anna asked me to give this to you when I stopped by. She said that she would love to see you there."
Kristoff held the poster out to Dee, who reached out and took it. She unrolled the sheet and both of the Daleons inspected it with little enthusiasm. It didn't take Ron long to become completely disinterested in the image of Queen Elsa, scoff lightly, and then return his seething eyes to the ice master.
"It's the day after tomorrow," Kristoff said. He knew that Anna would want them to come.
Well, he knew that Anna wanted everyone in the kingdom to come, really.
"Thank you," Dee said, her forehead still scrunched up in worry and her gaze passing right through the ice master when she looked up. "Perhaps we will see you there."
And so the ice master left the farmhouse with the friendliest nod he could manage.
He bounded down the porch's two steps and hopped back into his sled as fast as possible.
"Let's go, Sven," Kristoff commanded, and the reindeer was happy to oblige, having seen most of the events unfold through the open front door.
As they pulled away, Kristoff could swear that he felt Ron's hateful glare beating into his back, but was far too afraid to look back and check if his hunch was correct. He hadn't heard the door to the farmhouse close behind him.
The ice master didn't feel comfortable talking until the now-empty sled had completely left the farmstead's grounds and he had personally shut the rickety gate behind them.
"That was so weird."
"Yup."