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Anna admired the soft look on Kristoff’s face as he fiddled with the tuning pegs on the lute. The candlelight danced on his freckled cheeks and the only thing keeping her from launching forward to kiss the pretty brown speckles was the fact that she was so comfortably curled up in the quilt and eager to hear him play for her.
“What do you want to hear?” Kristoff asked, giving the instrument an experimental strum and feeling quite satisfied with the result.
Anna thought for a moment. Her favorites were the love songs, of course, and they were almost always her first request. But instead she asked,
“Do you remember what you sang the first time I ever heard you play? That night when I found you out in the barn during the snowstorm?”
Kristoff scoffed, both at the idea of him ever forgetting anything about his first encounter with the feisty princess and at the recollection of the words to that particular tune.
“Of course I do,” he answered. “But that wasn’t the kind of song you’d like. It wasn’t a love ballad.”
“I know,” Anna said. And at the look she received, she quickly added, “Well, I mean, I assumed. Considering Sven was singing along.”
Kristoff chuckled gently.
“Right, that’s a duet written just for him and I. And anyway, the lyrics… I don’t feel them like I used to. I don’t mean them the same way now. It’s best to leave it in the past.”
“I don’t mind,” Anna insisted. “I just want to hear it again.”
“Sven isn’t even here.”
“Please?”
Kristoff sighed. He was helpless to such a sweet plea and the big blue eyes peering up at him.
“Alright, alright,” he conceded. He took a breath and started to pluck out the notes.
“Reindeers are better than people—,”
“No, not like that,” Anna interrupted, her delicate fingers reaching out and splaying across the lute’s strings to keep her boyfriend from continuing. “I want to hear it the way you sang it the first time. The way you wrote it originally.”
She hadn’t understood a word of it-- only heard his melodic voice, soothing and sweet, paired with his goofy impression of his best friend. A moment she clearly wasn’t meant to see. But she’d meant it when she said it was nice, anyway.
“Huh? Oh.” Kristoff said. “You mean… okay.”
He cleared his throat and started again,
“Boazu lea buoret go olmmoš…”
Anna melted back into the quilt, her heart swelling as she listened. This was it— the very words she’d heard that had been the first hint that there was in fact a soft interior hidden inside the gruff mountain man she’d met all those months ago. Like the gentle fur lining of his tough leather winter gear— it was there, just covered for protection.
Kristoff still sang Sven’s parts with gusto, much to Anna’s amusement, but the twitch of his face and the way his thumb slipped told her all she needed to know— whatever joke this was, whatever lyrics he’d written to make light of the awful experiences he’d gone through? He didn’t like them anymore. He didn’t connect with them the same way.
He had found some people who were just as good to him as reindeers.
As the song came to a close, Anna placed her hand on Kristoff’s knee and smiled up at him.
“Thank you,” she said, blinking away any tiny tears that threatened. “We’ve been making a lot of memories together and… it’s nice for me to think about how far we’ve come since then.”
Kristoff returned her smile fondly.
“It is, isn’t it?”
Anna scooched herself over, bumping against Kristoff’s arm and resting her head against him.
“And I love hearing you sing in your first language. It’s incredible.”
Kristoff shrugged.
“It‘s not that impressive.”
“Well, to me it is! You have a whole entire dialect you can speak that I barely understand even a single word of.”
“Says the woman who speaks fluent Danish. And French. And Spanish. None of which I understand.”
“Yes, but it’s not the same,” Anna protested. “Those aren’t mine. Mine is Norwegian, and you already speak that.”
“Kind of thing you have to speak when you sell ice to Norwegians for a living.” His brow furrowed as he fiddled again with the lute. “Didn’t have much of a choice.”
“Hm.”
They were quiet for a moment as Anna considered the weight of his words. She thought about how some people gave Kristoff dirty looks when he spoke in Saami, as if he was spewing vulgar curses. But that was just part of who he was! So what if it was different? Why should he be looked down upon for it? This part of the world was as much his home as any Arendellian. He had a right to his own culture, his own practices, just as much as anyone else. She wouldn’t let people lose sight of that.
“I’d like to learn,” she said. “Maybe you could try to teach me?”
“I’m not a great teacher,” Kristoff said, shrugging. Anna could have protested this— he’d taught her many things in their time together— but she let Kristoff continue. “Talking isn’t exactly my strong suit, but I guess I could try. Where would we even start?”
“Hmm…” Anna thought as she looked into Kristoff’s eyes. But his gaze proved to be distracting. The perfect shade of amber peering back at her, shining warm and lovely in the firelight. “How do I say ‘you have beautiful eyes’?”
Kristoff blushed, growing flustered.
“I- I was thinking a more useful phrase? Like ‘hello, how are you?’ Or ‘what’s for dinner?’.”
“This phrase is very useful,” Anna said, voice soft but still confident. “I need to say it to you right now. Because you have beautiful eyes.”
Kristoff’s blush darkened. He gave in and answered,
“Dus leat čáppa čalmmit.”
Anna felt warmth blooming inside of her. She reached up and cupped Kristoff’s red cheek. Now the words she wanted to hear came easily to her lips.
“How do I say ‘I love you?’”
There was no hesitation from him as he replied, though there was a breathlessness as he said the words,
“Ráhkistan du.”
Anna slid her hand back to tuck some of Kristoff’s blond hair behind his ear.
“I want to tell you ‘I never want to lose you’.”
Kristoff leaned in, pressing their foreheads together as he spoke the words, truth in every syllable:
“In hálit goassige manahit du.”
Anna sighed dreamily and finally brought their lips together for a long kiss.
And another. And another.
They parted after a moment, smiling at one another. Kristoff’s morphed into a playful smirk, and he asked,
“Cummástallego?”
Anna blinked at him, trying to remember how to form words when what she really wanted to do was pull him back in against her.
“What does that mean?”
Kristoff held back a giggle. He set his lute aside in favor of wrapping his arms around her.
“It means ‘wanna make out?’”
The grin broke across Anna’s face and her eyes shined.
“How do you say ‘Yes, absolutely, always, you don’t even need to ask because I definitely, definitely do’?!”
“Uh…”
As Kristoff opened his mouth to give a response, Anna surged forward and brought their lips together again, eagerly melting against him and not needing an actual answer. Further lessons on language could wait.