We do not own 'Frozen' or any of its characters.
"Frozen Again: 'Love Never Ends"
Act VIII
Chapter 4
"A Father's Pride"
Kristoff Bjorgman had been raised in the mountains and lived in the mountains and worked in the mountains for most his life. He could feel the most advantageous spot on a climb by just looking at it. That was because he had spent his entire youth learning the extreme sport that required the ultimate challenge of bodybuilding strength, hardened endurance, as well as a steady temperament of cool under pressure patience.
All three of which the blond boy had been physically trained and mentally challenged growing up alongside the rough mountain men Ice Harvesters. They may have been rugged and terse, and maybe not all that warm and fuzzy cozy all the time – if ever – but those rough and tumble mountaineers had showed young Kristoff by example how rewarding an outdoorsman's life could be.
It was a life where one used his hands and brawn to make something of himself from sheer muscle and hard work like his Troll family taught him. This industrious child of the Snow Queen was never one to rely on anyone else's charity.
Luckily old Ragi was always there for Kristoff to answer the many questions the young boy had when no one else was around to turn to. Now that he had time to reflect on it in retrospect, Kristoff could remember all the times when he and Sven were caught alone on the weather beaten unfamiliar paths between the Troll Valley village and the mountain men camp when Ragi would mysteriously appear.
He recalls fondly how this man named Ragi would encourage his boy's capable strength and rational ability to push past mental barriers, and always keep a positive attitude.
Between Ragi and the Ice Harvesters over the years, Kristoff had experienced basic training in ice climbing, cutting ice steps, glissading down with ice axes, crevice crossing, self arrest techniques, glacier walking, rope tying, and tool management. The young Snow Prince was like a sponge, Bulda and Cliff teaching him to listen to all their learning in order to strengthen his own physical and mental fitness.
Everything and anything young Kristoff Bjorgman could, he observed from those fatherly figures to become expert in mountain climbing. He always felt equipped and confident because 'ole Ragi served as the young man's personal guide. The mysterious minstrel motivated the eager boy child on how to take care of himself and Sven, and in so doing the young man was enriched by his quiet older friend's unwearied experience.
So as he applies those well honed lessons here in this challenging match, Kristoff remembers his first advocate, the one who promoted his learning as the tiny child's father figure over the years. Ragi's many visitations of clement tutelage, always steady and self-possessed, gave the orphan boy left on his own in the wild, a confidence with the reliable, invariably wise and illuminating guide like a true father.
Maybe, as it turned out, that was because Ragi wasn't just standing in for one.
Thanks for always making sure someone was around for me, Dad.
Kristoff gazes across the breathtaking, scenic landscape as he pauses on his long climb up the Jötunheimr mountain to catch his breath and regain his bearings, thinking of his lifelong guide and father.
He suddenly begins to sing a haunting hymn's melody which he had heard Ragi singing in tough times when Kristoff was very young and the two of them were traveling together with the Ice Harvesters. The gentle spirited, honest man would often apply the plaintive song to whatever difficult labor or task they were doing, explaining to the young boy how the words had been written by a former slave named Wallace Willis, in distant America's land of the free.
'Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home
Swing low, sweet chariot
Coming for to carry me home.'
"Wow, that's so pretty wafting across the mountains, Kristly! I love how you croon when you're climbing and doing hard work! Am I glad I married a mountain man, or what?!" A totally impressed Anna was trying to be both encouraging and humorous to keep her blond mountaineer in an upbeat preoccupied frame of mind, rather than focus too much on the overwhelmingly jagged mountain torrent he was quickly, yet methodically scaling. "You're almost there, big guy! Just don't look down! Unless you're looking at me, because that's all right!" Her booming voice, full of praise, breaks into Kristoff's calm, clear and composed equanimity which was stirred by all of nature surrounding him that Ragi instilled in the boy since early youth.
If he was so lucky to win this race, Kristoff secretly wished to dedicate his ability to climb this massive mountain and win the Ice Harvester trophy to his inspiration of a father, Ragi, who was always there for him, standing quietly on the sidelines.
Ragi was the one man whom Kristoff looked up to more than any other, someone who he could still feel ever ready to be at his side, wherever the original Wind Whisperer was right now.
{"Anna, you've gotta keep your voice down if you don't want to cause an avalanche up here. I'm gonna break my own rules with this psi-link only once for the rest of this race, Baby."} Kristoff pauses in both song and concentration on scaling the steep cliff to glance down at his noisy wife below before he continues his psychic communiqué.
{"Against my better judgment and principles, you are supposed to be covertly disguised to impersonate a fellow mountain man. Remember, while I myself have absolutely no problem with your gender, in fact I respect it. I've seen personally how much skill you have learned and how much you put into whatever you take on, from climbing the highest cliffs, to crazy racing into fires, to helping people as Queen. But the Ice Harvester Association may have a problem with you being a female. I totally am cool with that fact, Anna, and think you do just as good as job as many men I know at ice harvesting, maybe even better for all your daring nerve and plucky attitude."} As he continues to climb and mentally converse, Kristoff chuckles in frustration at his amazing, chosen partner and bride. {"But since you have assigned yourself to be my colleague and mountain climbing partner, you can't act like my wife, okay? Sound echoes off these mountains, so you have to be more careful with your words, unless the other competitors hear and get the wrong idea."}
{"Right. Got it, partner. You really think I'm skilled, Kristly? Oh – okay. I promise to focus from now on just being your gritty, stalwart and durable buddy 'Ananais'."} After girlishly glowing with all his compliments, the peppy ginger puts on her best tough guy face, straightened bushy moustache and all, as she glances around to where a secondary pair of climbers was giving her and Kristoff cautionary looks.
Some of their competitors were just a few meters away as the teams of mountaineers progress up towards the first blue and white checkered flag on the ledge where the challengers' shared ice lake target was up top its frozen glacial plateau.
As her supertalented climbing hubby disappears over the crest, Anna remembers what they had discussed on the quick trip across the valley to this mountain base.
'When I get to the top of the plateau, I'll need a few minutes to saw the ice cakes to the specified twelve inch squares to make them completely symmetrical and perfect without leaving lips on either of the cakes. Like the rules said, I'll traverse the precipice to grab the marker flag on the way down. Then I'll lower them down in the bags full of sawdust that I brought up here on my back. It'll be up to you and Sven to cautiously load and secure those pair of ice cakes in Baby's cargo bed. I'll rappel myself down the cliff rapidly so we can take off ASAP as soon as I get back down.' Kristoff had stated just minutes ago in a flashback memory as he and Anna had raced to the edge of the Jötunheimr peak.
Readying the fitted cargo bed rear of Baby for the incoming ice blocks, Anna remembers how she herself had fastidiously packed all of Kristoff's cool climbing gear back home in Arendelle. Her man's tools of the trade included that huge, elongated, eight-tooth saw he now had strapped to his back and was carrying up the incline.
Anna had visited her fella's place of work in the mountains dozens of times in the past four years since they had met. She was always impressed at how skilled and clever and strong Kristoff could be with a saw cutting through thick rock solid ice.
"Ragi had taught you all about being a sawyer, didn't he?" Inquisitive Anna had asked of the new term in her ever-expanding vocabulary after an intimate mind perusal showed her those fond memories of Kristoff's along the bumpy road alongside the fjord.
"And much more than that, too. He may not have been around 24/7, but Ragi was always around to teach and instruct, encouraging me when I felt bad or lonely as a kid. Which was a lot. Just ask Sven." Kristoff had shared a crooked smirk with his attentive best friend and reindeer when he gave the proud reply without missing a beat. His customized racing sled named 'Baby' then kicked up snow dust as the accommodating balanced cutter with its new running cleats and steering column glided like a dream over the trails.
"Sounds like my Papa, too." The emotional girl could now smile with the no longer bittersweet nostalgic remembrances of her paternal parent's strong, yet gentle, hands that lifted his feisty child to reach treetops or pick her up out of scrapes and dramatic feints when he was teaching his baby girl Anna to both fence and dance.
As she was waiting, Anna reminisces the conversation as she shields her eyes to gaze up towards the noontime sun from where she sat in Baby's locked and loaded sled bench. The gutsy gal and their super reindeer friend, Sven, were both ready and eager to load the ice in the made-to-fit cargo bed, then speed back to the judging table.
From a safe, unseen distance, King Agnarr had been observing the race. The Ice King had shielded his cloaked presence behind a thin layer of ice that he kept as inconspicuous barrier should anyone happen to glance in his speeding along midair ice sled direction.
Finally stationing himself behind snowcapped rock formation on an opposing mountain crevasse at the plateau's level, the Ice King had tracked the compact black cutter belonging to his son-in-law. He had watched with impressed eyes how studiously the boy - Kristoff Bjorgman - had not only expertly used his ice pick and ropes, but also employed the rock face by its natural handholds of underclings and foot landings to propel the sinewy athletic young man up one of the steepest, most challenging mountain precipices in Norway.
As he stealthily followed the sled, the King, though suspicious at the outset, now only nominally wondered who the other hooded and ginger moustached, large set man seated beside young Mr. Bjorgman could be. Cloudy vision Agnarr had concluded that Anna's Ice Harvester husband had been partnered with someone assigned by the Ice Harvester Association's choice for this daunting two-man section of the tournament.
Anna's father gazes upon the commendably determined blond mountain man after Baby's amazing speed had indeed bested the other sleds to be the first contestant to arrive at Jötunheimr mountain's base.
Agnarr had watched with something akin to pride of the spirit God placed in man to see young Kristoff bravely traversing the steep mountain cols and edging the cliff's small handholds of the frozen waterfall with a boldness few men could attest.
Despite his lack of recognized title or court manners, perhaps this rough, yet capably reliable Snow Prince is not too bad a choice, my girl, after all…
The Admiral - who had spent most of his time at sea - didn't have many opportunities to witness the beauty of the majestic mountains of his country. He had only last glimpsed these particularly glorious peaks on his honeymoon tour with his Iduna, a quarter century ago.
Daydreaming of those happiest, most blessed of times with his beloved, Agnarr did not notice the other three sets of climbers' subsequent arrival.
That is, until the fair-minded King spotted some unseemly tactics of mountaineering that were unbefitting an honest gentleman, no matter how formidable and well-heeled an opponent the dark-haired brute was.
The spoiled, self-important son of the local mayor of Flåm hardly counted as a 'gentleman' by anyone's standards. The Ice King watches in dissatisfaction the dark brown curly haired muscleman now use his broad shoulders to clumsily smash and kick so hard into the talus laden spur ridge he had already surpassed. His ham-fisted movements seem to purposely knock a great amount of heavy snow and loose rock right into the face of his competitor climbing up from just below.
"Aargh!" The young, rusty orange haired Ice Harvester, who was the owner of the other regular sleigh that had correctly chosen the path where the first red and black checked flag was hidden, stumbles backwards.
"Such a shame! Here, let me help you out, friend." His tether rope thankfully caught him from falling backwards, as Kaarn Aall feigns helpful compassion, grabbing the other harvester's shirtfront where the red checked flag had been tucked.
No longer able to maintain his hold to his rope's grappling hook line with the amount of scree and wet slush now kicked in his eye burning way, the thwarted young man could not fight back. So his checkpoint flag, and trophy dreams were stripped from him in one fell swoop by this bullying creep, as the orange-haired young man rappels back to the low ground surface.
"That was a foul cheat, sir." From his lofted vantage, Agnarr murmurs under his offended, frigid breath from where he held his ice magnified telescope to view the illegal, unscrupulous action from clearly across the rise. The King almost felt the need to interfere and call the brash trickster out for his misdeed, but he was restrained at the last minute by remembering his good wife's prior warning to 'only observe'.
Now there were only three teams of competitors left, each climbing the mountainside at a fair distance from the other. First to the top Kristoff hurried to scramble up to the ice lake's surface, where the blue and white and green marker flag at the center checkpoint was waiting to be claimed by the first to finish their ice cut.
The focused young man immediately gets to work, producing his massive saw that had been strapped to his back the entire hard climb. Kristoff sagaciously chooses a suitable spot on the ice at a nearby section where the Ice Harvesters had previously snow plowed the lake to ice surface level with planks that left checkerboard grooves in it.
He kneels down to his choice segment at the ice lake where the muscular blond would endeavor to take on the difficult task of delicately slicing, but with great strength, two perfectly cut, identically matching ice cakes.
But just as he was preparing to pierce his saw into the chiseled chosen area of ice blocks where he had crouched down with his sharp ice tool, Kristoff's space was abruptly encroached upon by his ill tempered opponent who was next to ascend the plateau.
"I lay first claim to this section with my pick! So move on, Lil' Kris! This is my turf." Just like when they were young, sinking his own ice pick deep into the blocks Kristoff had already expertly sectioned off, the nasty boy of nine then twelve then sixteen had turned into a real jerk of a man at twenty-five.
Kristoff recalled how his demeaning nickname 'Lil' Kris' was started by this bully son of the Ice Harvester president whose father's pride used more than a little nepotism to favor the spoiled brat to always win whatever competition was held.
"Fine." Kristoff sighs, knowing this was a losing battle. He abandons the preferred location just a hop skip and jump away from the nearby second marker flag where he already started to set up without confrontation, to Kaarn Aaall's smirking triumph.
Less even-tempered King Agnarr, again, was just about to step in when a snickering Kaarn physically shoves off Kristoff's carefully laid out gear to the side. The long-suffering blond young man had to waste precious minutes to start all over again with a new set of ice blocks and cleaning up his strewn in the snow tools to boot.
More mild-mannered Kristoff Bjorgman had developed a tough skin when it came to being prejudiced against or looked down upon as an orphaned kid growing up on his own. He simply collects his large saw and packs up his other tools back into the leather cloth fabric tarp he had been laying out to load his heavy ice blocks on to ship down to his ice catcher below.
Kristoff and Kaarn were both well muscle endowed enough to manage to long stroke cut the full-length of their saws for quick, enviably clean cuts. Unlike that of the third man who appeared on the mountainside, a short and small framed competitor - a dark, salt and pepper-haired Saami old man who had been competing. He was smart and savvy enough to steer clear of the rival pair at the eastern far edge of the ice lake, keeping himself to himself.
Kaarn, after conscripting the ice block area Kristoff had already tapped, had that bit of an upper hand edge. He finished chiseling to split his seven inch deep, twelve inch by twelve inch ice cakes off with the breaking bar he grabbed before Kristoff had a chance to.
But in doing so too hastily, the delicate edges of his second ice cake were incongruous with the first, causing the dark-haired man to grunt in disgust.
Kaarn jealously glances over to where Kristoff's patiently waited for bar, steady and strong, expertly breaks his pair of precisely sawn cakes that matched perfectly.
The envious man slyly sends an 'accidental' ice pick flying down to the ground so hard that sinks and bounces into his competitor's top finished block while Kristoff was hurriedly wrapping the first ice cake in his saw dusted tarp.
"Hey!" Kristoff glowers angrily down at his chunked off piece of ice, but Kaarn simply shrugs at him.
"Aww, Lil' Kris! Did your ice get in the way of my pick? My bad." The stuck-up superior's curly head was holding back a victorious laugh. Assured that if his ice cakes were imperfect, he had at least 'accidentally' damaged the flawlessness of Lil' Kris' entries as well.
Without further apology, Kaarn wraps his unbroken, nearly identical ice cakes and loads them onto a tightly knotted gurney. Then he calls down for his partner below to expect the surely best - and certainly first - incoming ice blocks that would clinch his underhanded victory.
"See you at the loser's line, Lil' Kris." With this sniped salute, the over-indulged rich brat, with the seized checkpoint flag in taunting tow, takes off over the side to abseil down the mountain, fully expecting to claim his dishonest first place prize now.
King Agnarr, as solitary witness to this all, had to count to ten to himself again to observe his wife's sound advice to not intercede.
"The angry polar bear may be vicious and strong. But in the end, the patient wind will eventually conquer him." The old Saami man just finishes his own quiet ice harvesting, unnoticed, and pauses to take a deep breath before rappelling down his own rope's belay. The inscrutable dark skinned, greying little native man, who was related to the Northuldrans, shares some enigmatic words of encouraging wisdom with a frustrated Kristoff.
Enlightened in some weird, silent way, Kristoff doggedly begins to cut another ice cake, hopefully consistent with his remaining ice block to replace the damaged one. But it was hard to determine that now.
"As if an orphan nobody like Lil' Kris' wasn't bad enough… How did the likes of you get to enter our premier Winter Games, Samit?" The obviously pompously racist, musclebound Kaarn calls across the mountain base when he spots the extremely agile for his age, short little Saami. The indigenous man descends at much a faster speed than the big brute who started to rappel before the dark skinned, quiet little fellow did.
"Even the bright, hot sun will cry, when it underestimates the vastness of the stormy sky." The soft-spoken Saami elder indeed makes ground before his blustery challenger. Kaarn growls incensed at his opponent's mockery when he lands, seconds later.
"Well, I think you won't get much further in this contest for all your fancy words and stupid rhymes, you silly old illiterate native! We should have drove your kind off our land long ago! Grrr!" A begrudging Kaarn growls like a wild animal and startles his Saami competitor's reindeer team. The bucks back away, along with the boy helper and their team's only half loaded and secured ice cakes, to dash off in the opposite direction.
"That was a rotten thing to do, you nasty, ugly bigot! It's NOT NICE to scare reindeers, either!" An indignant Anna, on the ground floor to view it all, rolls up her oversized sleeves. As former Queen of Norway, she was fully ready to physically march over and verbally pound the big bully for showing such poor sportsmanship to browbeat and harass fellow competitors.
Nevermind his dumbhead prejudiced remarks the half-Northuldran, half-Arendellean, all-fair-minded young woman took great offense to.
"Oh yeah? You and what army, you weird shaped toad?! Get out of my way, old coot!" On the rampage now with a sure win in sight, Kaarn viciously retaliates to 'Ananias' by pushing Kristoff's 'trainer' bodily out of his path to his own sleigh on the other side of Sven and 'Baby.'
Anna skitters to the ground, shocked and growingly more angry and red in the face at such rude behavior after the initial fright of being exposed posturing as a man.
"You jerk! Stay away from my Baby!" Kristoff's surprises his startled father-in-law by uttering his new wife's demonstrative pet name seconds before propelling himself at incredible speed down with his ingenious winch and rope system as he had just completed loading his fresh cut pair of ice cakes onto the pulley. The always forward thinking mountain man had fashioned the device so Anna's admittedly small for this kind of heavy-lifting muscles did not to have to haul much. She only had to direct the slowly lowering parcels to Baby's back cargo hold with Sven's reindeer power doing most of the work.
At a death-defying speed that gave little care to the pair of precious ice cakes still tied at his feet, Kristoff descends the mountain with a courage and protective anxiety that could only be attributed for his beloved little bride.
"'Baby?!' Anna?!" An utterly stunned King Agnarr squints his blurry eyes to now scrutinize the well padded figure at the mountain's base valley nearby.
Sven the reindeer had defensively rushed up to rally around the figure scattered across the ground, who was thankfully so well padded, she bounced rather than hit the hard rocky surface.
All at once the King realizes Kristoff's ice catcher helper was none other than his daughter, Princess Anna of Arendelle.
You dared bring my little girl, dressed as a man, no less, up to these perilous mountains to compete with these brutal Harvesters?!
The indignant Ice King and father seethes in anger at Kristoff after feeling a bit of almost paternal pride earlier in Anna's mate that was just as swiftly ebbing. As for Kristoff, he was fortunately a whole mountain cliff away, scrambling too fervently to notice the cold wind battering a sudden flurry fiercely against him, making his job that much harder.
Once this competition is complete, you will hear of this again, Boy. You are fortunate Anna is unharmed this time. Seething frost condensation from his angry breath,Agnarr keeps cool and calm not to rampage an unequivocal ice tempest over Jötunheimr peak, as his wife made him pledge not to. He instead quells his bitter annoyance with future rancor directed at his son-in-law's slipshod dependability as the husband of his precious treasure of a child.
"Come, you worthless excuse for a partner! We've an open field! Step on it, man! But if you fracture either of my ice cakes, I'll break you in two!" Back at the mountain base, the burly bully snaps at his terrified looking younger partner who was accustomed to the verbal beatings from his cruel master, but not so much violence as he had seen Kaarn go to lengths this far.
The Winter Games' prestigious grand prize was obviously going to the other man's curly head as the team takes off to return to the harbor judges at breakneck velocity with the second yellow marker flag at the midsection mountain pass next in sight.
"Anna!? Did he hurt you, Baby!?" Kristoff abandons his previously flawlessly cut – no doubt now cracked – ice blocks for something far more precious to him. He fearlessly plunges his belay rope down the entire eighty foot exposure without safety harness or any of the careful techniques he had learned in good mountaineering. He was merely relying on the assurance of his grappling hook and bollard snow anchor to get him down as rapidly as possible to his Anna's rescue, cutting his rappel time in half.
"No. Just my pride. Don't you ever do that crazy maneuver again! Jumping off the mountain on a pulley like you're some superman, Kristoff Bjorgman! At least not without me along for the ride!" Anna witnessed her gorgeous hunk of burning love's incredible rope sizzling flight downwards to where she had been laid flat on her bottom at the mountain base looking up in awe at him.
"Are you okay?" Kristoff asks, dusting off Anna's funny male outfit and straightening her crooked mustache fondly as the young couple share a relieved smile.
"Yeah. I'm fine! And I bet 'Baby' can still catch up to that mean, cheating, nasty loser to win the big trophy out from under that Rasshøl!" Undaunted Anna, letting off steam beneath her wobbly moustache, throws in a feisty, mannish Norwegian swear word to her hunky husband as he lifts her to plunk on the sled's front seat behind a comforting Sven.
"Uhh…Okay…We probably can. But it's no use, because I'm sure the two ice cakes required are all smashed to a – Huh? I can't believe it! They're still all in one piece?" Kristoff was about to write off any victory lap with doubtlessly broken ice cakes. He was certain they would have been destroyed, after all the rough handling of his cavalier gravity crushing pulley beneath his big square feet ride down the mountain.
But as the collected and down-to-earth young man unwraps the leather pouch to see the damage, the insulated padded in sawdust perfectly cut 12 x 12 x 7" blocks were in shockingly solid, flawless shape as yet.
"Wow. They made it." Kristoff breathes with a quirky smile on his comely features as he hunkers up with the rest of his gear loaded onto the back underpinning tool compartment of his resourceful sled.
In utter silent astoundment, Kristoff shakes his handsome head, amazed. Then he swiftly packs them back in a fresh layer of sawdust and chuckles, still in blind shock as he fits the two ice cakes in the specialized, padded hold made just to suit.
"Of course they did! You packed them good like I taught ye, lad! Put a fire under it, Sven! We can't let that nasty no good, blankety-blank cheater get off Scottish free!" The dislodged moustache on her cute face laughing full of vigor and vivacious verve nearly flies off again as 'Ananias' takes control of the reins and asks Sven to hit the gas (figuratively speaking in such close quarters, Rangifer buddy!) like a speeding bullet the minute Kristoff was yanked into the driver's seat.
Baby whips around the mountain base, and down the narrowing trail that ran between the massive Jötunheimr and its majestic sister peak, the Jötunfjell, alongside the rocky wild fjord which flowed through the tight mountain pass of the legendary Old King's Path.
"Can you see them, yet?" Anna squints her eyes in the western waning sunset that brightly blinded the trail in this direction. At this point, Kristoff takes control of the reins, slowing Baby down so as not to tumble into the rushing fjord from the exceedingly narrow path to the flatter, more level siding of it.
"Kristly! Why are you slowing down?! Go faster!" Anxious Anna liked to play a good game. And even more than that, she loved to win! If she were the one still driving, it would be with more reckless abandon than her stable, safety-minded mate.
"Because if we tumble into the drink here, nobody's winning any trophies, Feistypants, except maybe some crutches for broken bones. This Old King's Path is pretty treacherous to drive if you're not careful. That's why this is a challenge, not just a race, Anna. Gotta know when to use speed, and when to take it easy. Slow and steady wins the race, right?" Though his own young testosterone was screaming out for him to not hold back, the sensible levelheadedness inside Kristoff answers his restless bride with one of his calm, disarming smiles.
"Okay. But I like to go fast." Anna clunks her feet up on the freshly lacquered black dashboard like she was raised in a barn again as a controlled Baby makes its way slowly along the winding trail overlooking the crashing fjord below.
"And I like you alive. Feet off the dash, Bab—" A smirking Kristoff turns his gaze for a split second to scold his girl.
But that was just when poor Sven loses traction and starts to slide towards the water below uncontrollably. The entire sled was suddenly sucked down by a sudden mudslide of a recently dug out, almost deliberately man-made design.
Baby was swept away down into the crashing waves of the fjord to be smashed against a massively huge, moss covered boulder wedged at the center of the tight mountain pass.
"Whoa, Sven! Hold on, Buddy! I can't steer the sled anymore! We're veering down towards that big rock! Can you fly, Buddy!?" But a waterlogged Sven, just managing to keep himself swimming with face above mud and water, was too bogged down by all the mud caught in the sled's runners and the weight of the heavy ice blocks in the rear to lift off with any carrying power.
Kristoff was not the type to panic. But he knew a 'designed for speed and not sturdiness' sled encapsulated in this unexpected mudslide, plus wild thrashing, crashing waves and sharp jagged rocks they were catapulting towards was no match for being dashed against the unforgiving rockface blocking between the pair of steep mountains.
The mountain man, thinking of Anna first, selflessly lifts her with his great might to perch upon his broad shoulders as he is the one to take the brunt of being submerged in the frosty waters, not his adored little wife.
"Kristoff! There's the flag!" A dazzled-eye Anna reaches out for the third checkered flag, a cleverly masked yellow and green one that was perched atop the huge moldy green boulder at the center of the fjords they were being washed into.
"Anna! Forget about the dumb flag and the silly Winter Games! We're in serious trouble! Hold onto me!" Sensible Kristoff sputters, his golden blond hair soaked and dripping down to his distressed forehead and face. "When we near that boulder, I'm gonna toss you up there as high as I can! You grab on as tight as you can to anything and crawl up with all you got in you, Baby! And don't look back down at Sven and me!" Having to scream loudly above the crashing noisy waves for a change from his mellow tones, the loving husband realized that if he had to die, let it be saving his Anna.
God, please give me the strength and Anna the toughness! Kristoff begs his Maker for the upper body muscle capacity to aim his hopefully sturdy gal and essentially accomplish a vertical throw to the mossy boulder looming ever closer to his most treasured possession.
Gritting his teeth, the determined and focused man of Nature in him was certain he could, even if it was to be his last task on this earth, borne of pure love for his funny girl…
With wide eyes, Anna, set upon Kristoff's shoulders that were silently preparing for her upward heave from where he was clinging to a mud-drenched Sven and the turbulent sled, watches in terror as their watertight ride rapidly is thrust by the merciless waves forward.
Gale! If you can hear me! Send Kristly help! At the last moment remembering the elemental, Anna mentally tries to contact the Wind spirit that she knew was close to Elsa.
Baby was carried at bone-crushing speed like an out-of-control boat towards the certain doom of that winter snow coated, moldy green ancient boulder, wedged directly right in the middle of the fjord dangerously blocking them…
Seconds before…
The horrified Ice King, hearing and watching this all from the far rear distance where he was behind an ice shield to maintain anonymity, was about to throw off any hesitance or convention and rush forward to magically intercede this time for sure.
But something else quite unexpectedly supernatural occurs before the perplexed Papa did.
R-RUMMMBBLLEE!
As if a giant earthquake was suddenly awakened, the very ground at the fjord starts to shake and roll, waves tossing the shipwrecked sled and its dizzied occupants to and fro.
First an arm. Then a hand. Then a head. The fjord, the shore, the whole world shakes until the giant boulder blocking the rushing water itself begins to move out of their endangered way.
The enormous green moss covered rock that had been primarily covered by snow at this late December wintertime reveals itself, in all its bulgy, massive, mossy and gleaming fungus to be a humongously large Rock Troll.
The monstrosity was covered from head to toe in fungus, with a long grassy moustache shoved out of his nostrils that, in retrospect, had been quite decoratively adorning the hilly stone wedged in the midst of the fjord between the tight mountain pass hikers used for crossing on foot.
"Flemmy! It's Flemmingrad the Fungus Troll! The one you sang that ballad to us about, four Christmases ago, Kristly! It looks just like him." Enlightened, delighted Anna fills in a dumbfounded Kristoff's speechless dropped jaw as the hundreds of years old giant Flemmingrad, the jolly old Troll legend, rolls from his back onto his rotund, roly-poly stone stomach.
Laughing for joy in a booming, ebullient bellow, Flemmy zealously manages to exert his immense Trolly hands and toes to lift upwards off the fjord's shallow rock bed and high up into the air.
That left just enough space for a desperate Sven and Kristoff and Anna, all attached to the compact sled, to safely flow under and past Flemmy upon the rushing fjord waves.
Then the waters carry the astonished trio to the west and back towards Flåm's village center, down the rapids of the hill. As for the midway checkpoint flag atop the boulder wedged between fjords that had been mysteriously obscured from Kaarn when he passed this way, it floats on Flemmy's final rolling wave right into Anna's hand.
"Nice roll! Thank you, Flemmy! Glad to meet you! Take care! And Merry Christmas!" Not at all perplexed by the uncanny weirdness of it all, Princess Anna giggles the niceties with cheerful holiday glee at her new friend.
She blows a kiss and a respectful wave of the red and yellow checked flag clutched in her hand to the renowned giant of Rock Troll lore.
Then the growingly calmer currents carry her and her 'sled-boat' of friends away at incredible speed nearly all the way down to the safety of the Flåm port.
"We love to watch him ro—oll! Ro–oll, Ro–oll! With laughter he would ro-oll! Ro–oll! Roll!" A glowing with pure happiness to have experienced such a miracle beside her gorgeous guy, Anna sings his traditional, sing-songy joik giddily, remembering the words Kristoff taught her vividly.
All the while, Sven returns their sled to solid ground and wastes no time shaking off the mud before taking off at incredible speed back towards the Flåm harbor finishing line.
The beyond relieved father in Agnarr, at full speed of his own ice propelled sled, had raced toward the amazing sight as he, the lone witness, beheld the inconceivable enchantment of from afar.
The grateful father and reverential King gives his own royal salutation of gratitude to the ancient forgotten Troll of legend that the human ruler himself had only read tales of.
"OUR SNOW PRINCE TREASURES HIS PRINCESS." The gleaming Fungus Troll's deep baritone rumbles low to stir the icy waters, so in tune with Nature, he knew Spirit Whisperer Kristoff Bjorgman's heart well.
And for that he was glad.
Then Flemmingrad the Fungus Troll once again blends right into the fjord, immobile and mute again.
But Agnarr could've sworn he saw the trace of a smile on the ancient Troll's great big fungi-covered face as it settled back to the fjord, to have had some heroic use after all these hundreds of years to this special Snow Prince named Kristoff who meant so much to their race.
Yes, I suppose he is a special young man to be so esteemed by the Trolls, and the elementals…Thank God for that. Anna's Papa saw how the capable mountainman was about to maneuver his bride to safety, prepared to give up his own aspirations and, perhaps life, for Anna's security.
The mark of God's perfect love of man for woman.
The King smiles approvingly beneath his ginger blond moustache at the fine young man Anna had selected as he scans the fjord where the massive fungus Troll had blended back in.
"'Wedged but not forgotten.'" King Agnarr softly recalls his favorite line of the storybook legend of the Trolls. Old GranPabbie had passed the tale on for young Agnarr to understand the oldest Norwegian race better when he himself was having difficulties growing up…different.
And maybe through that awareness, he could understand and accept the love between the dirt-covered mountainboy and his sweet Anna, too.
For that one sparkling moment, Flemmy had awakened from his deep sleep to be the legendary grandfather of all Troll heroes he was. Now he could return to that peaceful rest until the time came when he was needed again to roll.
And roll. And ro-oll…
Agnarr gives the dormant, enormous boulder of old a full naval salute and unspoken honorary knighthood for saving his little girl. He himself felt privileged to be one of the few who witnessed this miracle that would no doubt add another verse to the Ballad of Flemmingrad for Troll generations to come…
…Beloved by each troll girl and ev'ry troll lad…
"Flemmy is real." Are the only three words a shellshocked Kristoff could utter for the rest of their unbelievable tournament ride. In all the danger and excitement, he had quite totally forgotten about the race when the waters recede enough for Sven to return 'Baby' to the main road.
Without using one ounce of his flying magic, as Kristoff originally specified to his reindeer pal.
"Yep. And it looks like he's given us a shortcut straight down the mountain rather than around and around the downhill path! Serves that jerky Kaarn guy right. I think he sabotaged the road to collapse after he passed it, wanting to make sure that we were sucked down in a mudslide! He should go to jail for what he's done! Anyways! We're all good, Kristly!" Her screwed-up face riveting from contemplative to angry to uplifting, Anna looks at her dazed blond lover and smiles perky right in his face with an encouraging grin.
"The rushing water has cleared Baby's muddy runners proper like. So I think we've still got a chance to win this race! Flemmy wants us to! Step on it, Sven!" Along with the true heart of an adventurer, Princess Anna possessed the enthusiasm of a passionate competitor as she wildly grabs hold of the reins out of the big hands of her stunned, still trembling in place husband.
"Oh, Anna! What if I lost you or Sven back there because of this stupid race?!" Kristoff's evident emotion spills out all at once to big bear hug tight his partner in the front bench, buried somewhere in that funny costume.
"But you didn't!" The ever-optimistic gal sings and straightens her guy's creased worried brow, wiping the sweet tears for her from his face. Kristoff smiles his troubles away in relief they made it through unharmed as Anna brightly announces: "Flemmy made sure!"
Then the trio, with the condition of their cakes unknown, perhaps cracked up, destroyed and melted in the dip of crashing water they and their sleigh had been immersed in, charge down towards the finish line.
"Whee! We're beating him!" To Anna's squealing delight, Baby speeds a good half mile ahead of the rascal who would stop at nothing – treachery, duplicity, plotting, possible manslaughter, and downright meanness – to win the big monetary and mountaineering trophy honor prize again this year.
However, just as Anna and Kristoff were driving at top speed across the finish line before the cheering crowds – they realized someone else already beat them here.
"Forgive the racing experience of an old man, Andagassii (Snow Prince). But my reindeer have traveled the mountains for decades since my youth and my father and his father before have passed down the knowledge for generations, around the secret nameless mountain where souls come to rest in peace." The short and squat man of pure sinew and muscle, the dark skinned Saami grandfather, a distant cousin of Ryder and Maren, walks slowly up to Kristoff.
He bows his aged head deferentially to the special blond boy after the Saami begged pardon for his double Svalbard reindeer team to be the first to cross finish line, recognizing along the trail just who the tall blond mountaineer was.
"You don't have to apologize, sir. You – unlike others – ran a good, fair race. Congratulations." Kristoff shakes the Saami elder's fat little hand in his big one. Then he gives Kaarn's sled which had just rolled in at third place, a decidedly dirty glance.
It took Anna's surprisingly composed arm holding him back to prevent the irate blond lad from marching over and giving the dangerously disruptive bully 'what for.'
"Christmas is too good a time for fighting, Kristly. He's not worth it." Showing the wisdom of a Queen, Anna speaks with a grimace and pent-up scrapper sigh of her own. Her big, blue-green eyes travel up to where her best friend/ soulmate sister was sitting in the bleachers above, looking so calm and regal with a bolstering smile beneath that dark hood with Bruni on her shoulder, so Anna finds peace in herself too.
"Bagadit du cappet eadmit, Vahla Radien Gaanda, oktage." The Saami man's old eyes crinkle as his gaze travels between Kristoff and Anna with almost paternal pride.
"What'd he say, Kristoff?" Anna stands on tippy-toe to whisper in Kristoff's ear at the foreign Saami phrases being spoken while the dark little man was looking in her direction.
{"Umm…'Listen to the advice of your pretty wife, Reindeer King, and nobody else's.'"} Kristoff translates, distractedly passing his words on through their reopened psi-link.
"Oh, I knew I liked him. I'm glad he won the race then, I guess." Though at first vexed at being beat by this dark horse – or rather, dark reindeer – sleigh, the ginger Princess with the heart of gold quickly warms up to the older man who had somehow seen through her male disguise.
"Do not be fooled, good townspeople of Flåm! This old Saami shaman obviously snuck in by some evil black magic to appear to be first to cross the finish line! But who cares!? He doesn't even possess one of the marker flags!" Kaarn viciously attacks his opponent, whipping out two of the three checked marker flags that he had ruthlessly gathered to wave in the air triumphantly.
When everyone in the crowd applauds for their reigning hero's triumph, Kaarn awards them with a sweeping, braggadocious bow. "See, even the rabble know the race for speed is the least important part of this tournament, is it not, Ice Harvesters? It's the quality of the cut of our ice cakes brought back to the judges that is the true measure of a mountain man! Any fool can hastily drive a sleigh across a field." Bitter Kaarn was not so conciliatory as Team Bjorgman. He was still clinging to his entitlement of victory with a demanding stare to his powerful father of a mayor standing at the trophy platform.
"This is true. It is the skill of collecting the flag markers and ultimately the toil of an Ice Harvester with his ice splitting technique which holds more weight in the points system than that of the simple contest of mere speed between here and the mountain. With that in mind, let the real Ice Harvesting judging begin!" The founder of the Ice Harvesters Association, Mayor Aall, lays down the law as he saw fit. It just always happened to be in favor of his son.
Soon, Kaarn, Kristoff, and the Saami man fittingly named 'Ahccejohtalet' (Traveling Father) all produce their amassed flags and cakes on three of the four cleared tables before the judges of the Ice Harvester's Association.
As first to arrive, the old Saami and his young son carefully unload one of their ice cakes, but find that it had been bashed slightly, probably due to the frightened start of the poor reindeers caused by that bully boy Kaarn earlier at the mountain base. Unfortunately, the edgeless ice cake did no longer at all compare to his second well-cut block, thus achieving a below average score for his hard work at the ice, and no bonus points for capturing any checkpoint flags.
Next, Kristoff and his invaluable partner 'Ananias' rather carefully unpack their ice cakes from Baby's specialized cargo hold. The cakes were still buried in so much sawdust, at his own logical design. But Kristoff was sure they would be in a worst state of condition than the Saami's, for all the young blond's reckless plummeting down the mountain, crazy sled diving into the tumultuous fjord rapids and wild racing by Sven to catch up in the home stretch.
Kristoff tried to be a responsible husband, more than a mad racing driver or ruthless competitor at any cost, but Anna was relentless. Despite her prodding, he had to forgo speed and precaution at times for the precious cargo of this contest's fragile ice, in trade-off for his far more prized Anna and Sven's safety.
After helping Kristoff carefully unload, Anna looks up to wave their single flag up to Elsa, but finds a frozen smiling Olaf still on the high bench was now alone, gritting his teeth and blinking down at her. Anna frowns beneath her false moustache, scanning the nearby area on the ground level for her sister, or at least that snotty Prince Alonso, who would surely stand out in the working-class crowd.
The ice cakes Kristoff Bjorgman was absolutely certain had suffered from being smashed about - if they even survived through mudslides and rapids - were unlikely to match precisely anyway. And that was because he had to go back and re-cut a new second cake not simultaneously in line with the first, due to Kaarn's cruelty.
But to his surprised pleasure, they were both perfectly intact and precise.
"Wow. They both survived." Kristoff reels with a whistle under his breath at his good fortune. His down-to-earth mind could not believe his carelessly battered ice blocks survived the crazy tumult without a little help.
I wonder… He glances around, pretty sure that Elsa would keep her word of honor and not do anything to give him an upper hand in this competition, spirit elementals and all.
Even if it could have been justified, due to the fact he was unfairly treated by the other cheating competitor.
"Of course they did! Because we made the trip together, Kristly! I mean… ehem… Sure. Don't sweat it, boy! I taught him everything he knows about ice and mountain climbing and packing the cakes up snug! The Kid just gets a little overcome after he does a good job." Boastful Anna, waving their one hard-fought-for checkered flag, modulates her girlish voice and deepens it to be more blasé manly, with arms folded over her dilapidated, padded 'strapping chest'.
A smiling Kristoff rolls his eyes up to the heavens. In doing so, he spies in the indistinct crowd a certain pair of usually stern, exacting hazel eyes with only the slightest bit of a iciness behind them. Behind the throng, in the rear just coming in for a discreet landing, King Agnarr was gazing dimly back upon his son-in-law with a nod filled with something Kristoff never expected to see.
Is that…fatherly pride? Does this mean Anna's dad finally accepts me?
Sensitive and sweet Kristoff could sense the same look in Agnarr's gaze as he saw in Ragi's old crinkled eyes as he feels King Agnarr's paternal approval at long last.
Kristoff's insides well up with that knowledge worth far more to him than having this contest's victory that was now in sight. His flawlessly cut pair of ice cake specimens' points stack up much higher than the first entrant's, allowing 'Team Bjorgman' to pull into the lead, despite their second place in total speed returning.
"Well, don't get your hopes up too high, Lil' Kris! I'm sure my truly symmetric, identical ice blocks, plus my greater amount of marker flags will give me enough points to take the victory that I deserve!" Kaarn pronounces, as he throws the weight of his words around wildly like the blowhard he was. He self assuredly shows off his two different-colored checkpoint flags to the counter of judges in a dramatic flourish. Then the chairman's son unties his well wrapped wares onto his table –
Only to find the pair of them, quite identically, freshly crack right in half beneath his grubby saboteur's hands, as if by some inexplicable Divine justice to pay for his dishonest cheating crimes earlier.
"What?! NO! I'm supposed to win and be victor of this entire tournament! Damn blast, that idiot driver you partnered me with, Father! This is all your fault! Not mine! All your fault, for letting those lowly cretins into our prestigious Winter Games! I tried to edge them out and keep the sanctity of our sport for those of us rightly ordained, and this is my reward?! *%#*# !" The audience, at first gasps at the foul language expressed by the last year and the year before's champion. Then the crowd begins to laugh as the stuck up, arrogant and egotistical young man named Kaarn picks up his ice cakes and they utterly disintegrate in his fingers.
"It was Kaarn who purposely almost got me killed while he was grabbing the flag up top away from Bjorgman! Kaarn's the one who should never be allowed into another competition, and do some time for attempted murder!" The young rust orangey-bearded mountaineer, just then pulls up with his partner, back from their sabotaged unfulfilled trip to the ice lake in this supposedly good faith, test of courage sporting event. Bandaged and bloodied and bruised - and mad as hell to point a blaming finger at Kaarn - the fourth contestant had barely survived the 'entitled' rotten blackguard's blinding scree sediment attack that almost cost him his life.
"I-It's all true! I had nothing to do with that! I even tried to stop him!" Even Kaarn's assigned mountain man partner abandons his defamed former friend, moving to the side of the angry crowd and the injured victim he had witnessed his boss so hazardously transgress against.
"Get out of my face, you dang # *&% # son of a #&% !*!#$!" Kaarn violently rips up one of his flags to smack over his traitorous partner's head, along with any chance to take home this year's grand prize.
The spoiled brat, always sheltered for bad behavior by his doting, indulgent single parent, is finally taken down a peg as his cuss words ring throughout the family oriented sports event. The supposedly civilized politician's son makes the appalled mothers cover their indoctrinated children's stinging ears at this awful display of poor sportsmanship.
"Put Kaarn behind bars!"
"Punish him! He's a bad example for our boys!"
"I'm never going to let my child watch any sports match that horrid man is involved in!"
Several of the aghast parents in the crowd nod in agreement with that public consensus as many of the mountain men who were fathers and good men walk away to shun their former leader of a strapping, self-aggrandized hero.
"Lock him up! Lock him up!" The mob of good people cries out for justice to be served to even those of high rank and favor for the sake of equanimity for all.
Kaarn's own shamed parent hangs his head and moves away from the discredited and disgraced young man. The mayor of Flåm and Ice Harvester chairman Mayor Aall steps up to the awards ceremony podium and interrupts his cussing son pounding on his poor partner.
Kaarn is dragged away by the local lensmann (sheriff) and constabulary police, kicking and screaming on the cold main street of the port village, with only himself to blame for no longer being anyone's favorite athlete.
The throat-clearing Mayor changes the unhappy scene from further crude disruption of the supposedly family attended event at this Christmas time to deliver the more pleasant part of the ceremony outcome.
"Good citizens, if I may have your attention here at the center stage." Mayor Aall watches with an indulgent father's eyes and politician's detachment as his spoiled rotten son was carted away to the local jail cell to cool down and possibly face consequences for his serious violent crimes.
"Without further ado, after conversing with our fine panel of judges as the scoring, the First Place Winner to these Winter Games to prove the true meaning of honest grit and hard work, with unprejudiced skill rewarded –" Capitalizing on the good sentiment such grandiose words aroused, the elected official smiles, unaffected by any personal unease, to the silent throng surrounding. "– the recipient of the First Place prize and new titleholder of the 'Ice Harvester King' for our Winter Games 1843 – is…Master Kristoff Bjorgman! Let us give a hand to our new champion and his fellow mountain man friend, going by the single name 'Ananias', for their worthy teamwork, speed and skill that does credit to our great Ice Harvesting profession!"
Kristoff's cheeks blush to a deep crimson as his large fingers wave tentatively to the swooning young girls in the crowd, much to Anna's smirky dismay.
"Hip hip hooray! Hip hip – Ohh!" In all the celebratory enthusiasm of cheering and back smacking their newly inducted heroes being roughhoused all around, Ananias' already shaky shoulder and widened stuffed chest slips down. Her false moustache is unconventionally knocked off halfway to droop crookedly across her cute, guilty face, particularly when her hat was knocked off and Anna's ginger braids are revealed.
"It's a girl! Our new Ice Harvester King has deceived us with a disguised female partner!"
Was it Kaarn in the far distance who started the trouble? Or was it another intolerant sexist in the crowd of rough and tumble mountaineers, who vociferously cried out the prejudicial comment to the gasp of the horrified onlookers?
Just itching to withhold the prize his son deserved, Mayor Aall begins to draw back the silver trophy engraved with the ice harvester badge of the Julbukk Yule goat hauling an ice block that he was about the place in a stunned Kristoff's hands.
"It's a woman!"
"Unheard of!"
"Shocking!"
"Revolting!"
"A female Ice Harvester? The end times are near!"
But that's when a singular voice booms out all over all the uproarious noise of the shocked crowd.
"And exactly what is wrong with that? Why can't a qualified woman participate in your Winter Games, if she works hard and learns and trains to do so alongside her husband? Is that not the God-given role of a wife since she was created to be Adam's helpmate?" A petite, dark brown haired, woman with her head held high boldly makes the gender inclusive statement to the hushed crowd. However, they were more than of half a mind to start booing her modern feminist ideas invading their small village traditionalist mindset.
But strong-willed Iduna of the Enchanted Forest understood Nature and the role God gave females - to bring harmony to not only a home, but also to her mate, wherever the road of life took him - a great deal more than any of them.
"Adam's helpmate? See what good she did him with that ole snake in the grass."
"Ha! What sane man would bring his wife out on the trail?"
"That kind of a brassy female would only get in the way in such a rugged sports competition!"
"She's not fit for man's work!" Some old-fashioned men even begin to titter the stereotypes to one another with sneering chuckles.
That's when General Destin Mattias steps into the scene. The experienced old soldier had just arrived at the Winter Games by horse after completing his mission in Trollheimen to assure every Fire Troll was accounted for and acclimated to being situated and housed with their Rock Troll cousins.
"Spoken like true Neanderthals more than patriotic sports spectators. Isn't stretching beyond the limits of yourself to achieve higher goals for each individual – whether rich or poor or renowned or a nobody - what these Games of yours are all about? You should give your better half and your daughters a little more credit if you suddenly found your helpless backside minus a fresh washed shirt, fresh-cooked meal, and fresh scrubbed house and kids. Then maybe we'd find out who's the incompetent, helpless one in the household." Mattias was never afraid to speak up for a subject he believed in.
"I've just come from witnessing the most amazing, most brilliant, most capable person kick Devil monster ass with just the flick of her elegant hand to save this entire nation from doom, for the likes of sorry saps like you. As a soldier, I've come to know quite a few ladies I'd trust more in battle than many other men I've served alongside in my day, boys." Destin Mattias had spent far too many years beside a great lady like Northuldra leader Yelana to not recognize that mere physical strength couldn't hold a candle to greater mental strength in military strategy. And in the older man's opinion, it was the female intuition, loyalty and steadfastness that he'd trust his life to, any day.
Elsa and Anna of Arendelle were flawless examples of that.
"So that begs the question: If she's not good enough to honestly compete in a fair, unbiased competition, is a female not good enough to serve and defend the country as your monarch Queen?" With her mother Queen Iduna gathered at her side, even disguised so as not to disrupt the holiday festivities, Elsa's profound follow-up statements boldly ring in her coloratura soprano with decided truth in the serious inquiry.
Queen Elsa of Arendelle removes her hood from covering her regal blonde head as she shakes off the cloak that she had been covertly disguised in the audience under to stun silent the crowd upon the awe-striking revelation.
But no one, not even the blustery Mayor, knew how to answer his sovereign Queen's pressing modern question.
"Thank you, Mattias, I concur entirely about the spirit of stirring competition. The rest of you would do well to heed the said words of my most trusted General and friend, as well as my guardian angel conscience – my beloved wife Iduna - and that of my daughter, your Queen of Arendelle, gentlemen. All three women in my life have personally proven to me, over the years, to be more clever, more strong-willed and more perspicacious than I ever imagined they could be. And certainly up to any challenge or task set before these brave, wonderful women, more so than perhaps even their humble King." With eyes clearing more than visually, Agnarr gives Iduna and Elsa a respectful nod apiece, gazing over to where Anna was grinning from ear to ear with her father's pride.
"These superb Winter Games of yours, designed to challenge the salt of the earth – which, I may add, includes us all, according to the Good Book - in this breathtaking land should be open to all who wish to participate, without prejudice to class, nor race…nor gender." Surprising all yet again for a third time, though the last admittance personally pained the old-school raised man, Agnarr takes this flabbergasted moment of the unsettled crowd's uncertainty to move forward. The regal ruler all gathered reverently recognized, clears the waves of prejudice and sexism he was disturbed to have witnessed to be so moved in a propitious direction for all concerned.
As a proud father of two vibrant, strong-minded daughters, Agnarr, was at first startled and angered that his headstrong Anna was not acting in her place as a regal woman in the mid-19th century Victorian age. There the female sex was honored yet misunderstood, and participating so flagrantly in the guise of a man no less in these northern Winter Games was unheard of uncouth.
If he had not had moments to pause in the quiet silence of the majestic mountains that humbled even a Royal King, during his 'observations', previously irate Agnarr - at Kristoff mostly, to have allowed little Anna in such humiliating male garb participate in these dangerous ruffian Games - may have responded in much the same way as his fellow misogynist man on the streets of Flåm harbor.
However…if my child has shown the reflection of her mother's passion and free-spirited spontaneity to be half of the rightful recipient of this well-earned prize that I personally witnessed her role in, then I see no reason on God's green earth why she, as a full citizen of Norway, should not be permitted.
My daughter has shown the acumen and doggedness to enter a tournament of yes, great strength, but also tenacious intelligence and willpower that all females and males alike can aspire to, and be lauded for, from now on.
In his blindness, the King was again learning to listen to the quiet voice inside him that the Lord put there that most who see and hear more of the world's tempting offerings often ignore. He meets the wise dark eyes of the now smiling Saami older man standing on the sidelines of the crowd as he nods at the King's sagacity. The native who had seen bigotry and intolerance in his day, appreciated this noble recognition far more than any race's victory.
"Why – ahem, yes, of course, Your Majesty. Your Majesties. The Ice Harvester Winter Games in the future will be open to all genders and races, all who wish to participate, by your Royal decree. And may I say, Sire, that your citizens are elated to have you and your good lady Queen – who is, if I may say looking quite lovely, in complement with our beauteous Queen Elsa – returned to our country and attending our humble sporting event." The pompous mayor gives a reverential bow to his King and Queens.
With a smirking General Mattias leaning against the awards stand, all three of the Royal monarchs - unexpectedly present in this quiet, small fishing village town - nod back to him after the King made that bold, new proclamation.
"Thank you for that, Papa." With a soft whisper, Elsa rather demonstratively opposite to her normal shy reticent behavior plants a cool kiss on King Agnarr's surprised cheek, making her father blush and smile to remember the happy childhood days which he and his wife spent with their two children. The precious times when his 'Little Snow Angel' and were as close as father and daughter could be before his ill-advised decisions for their family to be split apart.
"We love you, Papa!" Hopping up to the winner's platform close to her parents and sister, Anna too felt the need to reiterate her affection for her paternal parent. King Agnarr had suffered so much and was shining through it all now be good leader and father more every day, just as they prayed and believed he would be again.
As Kristoff hands Anna the winning trophy for her to revel in the moment he knew was hers as much as his, in the back of his mind Kristoff had a sneaking suspicion that his father-in-law may have had a small role in maintaining his unscathed ice cakes not to break in that sabotaged race.
Though the honest man in him was disturbed by such preferential treatment, the grateful son was glad for the justifiable help from his secondary father.
"Congratulations, 'King of the Winter Games'." King Agnarr glances back at where Mattias was looking at him with a smug nod of approval. The older gent always trying to knock that snobbish regal training out from his charge since Agnarr was a kid.
To the real King's hilarious address of him, Kristoff quirks a funny smile as the Arendelle King dutifully takes over the ceremonial role from the bowing and scraping Mayor. Anna's rigid father places the Ice Harvester King 'crown' – which was really a crafted Julbukk antler embossed ice block Ice Harvester emblem - on the top of the blond boy's scruffy head.
"Thanks. How do I look?" A nervous more than self-conscious Kristoff tries to feel out his at times unreadable father-in-law, while Sven gives out a humored HOMN! and rangifer-y laugh along with a reanimated Olaf at their ice cube and seasonably Christmas Julbukk goat antlered best buddy.
"Ridiculous. But, after all said and done, I am glad our little Gingersnap treasure chose you." Deadpan Agnarr answers in soft tones, recalling how this brave boy had forgone all and was prepared to give so much to protect his little gingersnap back there in the fjord. To Anna's delight and Kristoff's stupor, the previously chilly Ice King confers a warm pat to his accepted son-in-law's powerful, musclebound arm.
That look of undeniable fatherly pride reminded the younger man of what he saw long ago in his own father, Ragi's unspoken, encouraging dignity.
{'This one was for you, Ragi… Pabbie. I hope I've done you proud.'} Kristoff sends the long distance greeting to his father half a world away where he and the Snow Queen were starting a new life for themselves in the South Pole.
{'I wish you and Muthir a very Merry Christmas time in your new home, too…
Maybe you can say 'Hi' to Santa Claus and his Julenissen (Christmas elves). You can tell him I've already got everything I want for Christmas, right here…"} Kristoff, wearing his Christmas yule goat crown proudly with Sven's neck hugged under his arm, gazes over to the festive scene all around him.
{'Well done, Son. Well done.'} The man of few words, who possessed a calm, serene voice and a father's pride for his child, psychically enters Kristoff's open mind in simple, yet profound response from miles and miles away.
Kristoff smiles, awarding his first Christmas gift of Sven a fond noogie.
After the upsetting hubbub of the hardwon competition dies down, the buoyant, cheerful villagers were again full of holiday excitement. Festive wreaths, decorations and bells all come out and were rung by King Agnarr and Queen Elsa's consent by children and adults alike for the Winter Games' conclusion.
And that joy was now coupled with the honor of meeting their beloved sovereigns, as Elsa, Agnarr and Iduna do a lot of handshaking and schmoozing with the regular folk of their great country.
There was his Anna in the midst of it all, unraveled as his cutie Princess again by her magic ice, fancy-dressing sister Queen Elsa and Gale, reunited with their happy parents, all smiles and togetherness as Alonso, Mattias, and Olaf – with Bruni on his permafrost snowfriend's shoulder - look on from the bleachers.
The Arendelle Royal family was willing to fully share that love with the lonely orphan mountain boy—the gift of this precious family vacation Christmastime they only all dreamt of before, as visions of festive Julbukks prance around in their satisfied heads...
Julbukk – Scandinavian Christmas Yule goat
Julenissen - Scandinavian Christmas elves
Pabbie – Father in Icelandic
Muthir – Mother in Icelandic
Joik (also spelled yoik, or luohti in Saami) - a traditional Saami form of song. A joik is one of the longest, living music traditions in Europe, and is the folk music storytelling method of the indigenous Saami people.
'Swing low, Sweet chariot' - hymn written by American freed slave Wallace Willis in 1830
Happy September weekend, my Frozen Again friends!
Yeah! Team Bjorgman won, despite all the sabotage and cheating by the formidable opposition!
Maybe with some surprise help from the legendary giant Troll 'held in highest esteem, whose manner was kind and his fungus did gleam…' to get our Kristanna out of that nasty jerk's precarious scrape!
I've been singing Ballad of Flemmingrad of Kristly's for a solid week now! So cuuutttee!
This family bonding episode was full of fatherly moments between Kristoff and his Papa-in-law, King Agnarr! I think the King has finally come to terms with his Gingersnap Anna's choice of mate, appreciating Kristoff's true devotion and care for his daughter.
We'll see how Hans Westergaard fares in much the same category in the episodes to come. (That sly, clever Red Prince of the Southern Isles has a wee bit more baggage than stalwart friend and hardworking mountainman/ Snow Prince Kristoff– i.e. willful deceit with ex-fiancee Anna, attempt to usurp the Crown of Arendelle by marriage or murder with Elsa, he's a nation-grabbing Dane, etc. :)
Papa Agnarr means well and wants what's best for his girls. He's now warmed up to Kristoff in this sports racing event. Now what can impress Papa Agnarr to become more fond of Prince Hans…? A very good question for when the family gets back to Arendelle castle to start Elsa's birthday festivities and the King tangles with a certain Redhead – among some other guests - again!
God bless all of you well-intentioned, loving Dads out there as we kids do our best to make you proud! :) !
Jesus loves you!
Love, Haruka
P.S. I've included the full lyrics of our catchy fun joik about Flemmy for you to sing along and brighten up your weekend! I know I will be singing in mine!
'We love to watch him ro~ll! Ro~ll Ro~ll!'
"The Ballad of Flemmingrad" - written by Elyssa Samsel & Kate Anderson
There once was a troll held in highest esteem
For his manner was kind and his fungus did gleam
The ballad of old Flemmingrad
Beloved by each troll girl and ev'ry troll lad
They gifted him berries and moss cake and stew
He gobbled with zeal as he zealously grew
To such a large old Flemmingrad
He always felt full and for that, he was glad
They loved to watch him roll, roll, roll
With laughter, he would roll, roll
Then one winter's day, humans crept up so fast
The trolls had to roll through a tight mountain pass
But dear old giant Flemmingrad
He tried to go through, but got stuck just a tad
The people were frightened and pulled out a sword
So, Flemmy, he blended right into the fjord
The ballad of old Flemmingrad
He never got out, and for that we are sad
Wedged...but not forgotten
For Flemmy couldn't roll, roll, roll
Oh, Flemmy, won't you roll, roll
And that's why we have this tradition
Every December we all gather 'round
To pay our respects to a troll so renowned
In remembrance of the friend we had
A jolly old soul we called Flemmingrad
We all dig deep down and we uproot the past
We shove up its nostrils a fist full of grass
In resemblance of the dear old lad
We forged a mold of Flemmingrad
We shape his likeness, bless his soul
Oh, Flemmy the Fungus Troll
