Chapter Text
Inhaling another fresh breath of winter air, Kristoff found himself once again relieved to be out of the stuffy Arendelian castle. Since his royal life began, he realized that his time alone in nature was precious and increasingly rare. The only times he was encouraged to go out by himself were for the sake of making appearances as Royal Ice-Master and Deliverer, to remind the citizens of Arendelle that he was a man of the people.
Needless to say, Kristoff was glad to be outside again.
“This is what it’s all about, isn’t it Sven?” he sighed to his reindeer, patting him on the neck. “No more galas, no more banquets, no more hands to shake. Just fresh, open air. I think I could stay out here forever; what do you think?”
Sven grunted agreeably.
The trail in Northuldra territory was strikingly beautiful this time of year, frozen beads of ice hanging down from the trees and clinking together like wind chimes. In the nearing distance, the bright tenor of a young man’s singing voice livened the stillness of the trail Kristoff walked, the lilting, improvisatory style of singing prompting Kristoff to believe it was a joik — a melody characteristic of a person or place that depicted their very essence in song.
Kristoff let the stresses of life melt away, the low, powerful melody reminding him of the rumble of the fjord when he’d crossed it with Sven a few hours ago. Knowing all too well the warm and friendly person the voice belonged to, the uncharacteristic iciness of the song piqued his interest. He wondered who, or what, this joik was about.
As they approached the Lichen Meadows, Sven grunted excitedly, galloping away to reunite with his reindeer friends.
“Go get ‘em, buddy,” Kristoff encouraged.
He lingered back on the trail, letting himself enjoy the mysterious song for a moment longer, and resumed his course slowly, watching a lone shepherd mingle with the herd of reindeer. From this distance, Kristoff recognized the familiar contour of Ryder’s shoulders and hands as he brushed down one of the large mammals. Looking at him now, and hearing his voice, Kristoff could confirm that over the past few months, he had indeed missed his friend dearly.
It had been three months since his and Anna’s wedding. Three months since Kristoff had seen Ryder in person at the reception. Three months of Gale — the wind spirit — couriering letters between them. It had been even longer since Kristoff had traveled across the frozen fjord into Northuldra territory to visit Ryder and his tribe.
The holidays, as it turned out, served as a good excuse for Kristoff to escape the suffocating tendrils of his marriage. Of course, it was more complicated than that, but Kristoff was determined to push it out of his mind as he snuck up from the trees behind Ryder.
The young man was still humming to himself, completely unaware of Kristoff’s mischievous grin. The ice-man reached down to the ground to scoop up a small pile of snow, and before he could consider the consequences, poured it over Ryder’s head, snowflakes crumbling as they fell from his hat.
Ryder nearly jumped out of his skin, a startled yelp escaping him that spooked the reindeer he was grooming. He whipped his head around to Kristoff with a torn look on his face — clearly fighting between affront and dawning delight.
“Surprise,” Kristoff announced sheepishly, extending his arms.
Ryder quickly recovered from the shock — “Kristoff!” — and launched into the ice-man at full force.
Kristoff’s chest squeezed tightly as they wrapped their fur-cloaked bodies around each other. Ryder gave a small, content hum, burrowing his face into Kristoff’s shoulder, and he found himself almost overwhelmed by the physical contact. It had been a while since he’d hugged someone, and the feeling of comfort made way for excitement at the number of things he knew he could say — wanted to say — to his friend since they’d been apart.
“Feels weird,” Kristoff admitted after a considerate moment, his voice muffled by the fabric of Ryder’s coat. “Finally seeing each other after all of our letters.”
Ryder gave a soft chuckle. “I’ve never sent letters to anyone before. Is it weird?”
“No! Well, I mean a little? Not— not the letters themselves.” Kristoff floundered, searching for the right words. “I’ve just learned so much about you since the last time we spoke. It’s cool. You’re cool. I’m the one who’s weird.”
“That is true,” Ryder said, playfully pulling the rim of Kristoff’s hat down over his eyes. Kristoff wriggled away, laughing.
“So,” he asked, momentarily distracted by the gleaming flecks of snow on Ryder’s eyelashes. “Who were you joik-ing ?”
Ryder snorted at Kristoff’s idiomatic phrasing. “Oh nothing, really. Just the forest, the trees. Maybe a reindeer or two.”
“It sounded like ice!” Kristoff blurted out.
Ryder darted his eyes away suddenly, his face turning a bizarre shade of pink.
Kristoff took that as a reminder to chill out a bit. It had been a long time since he’d interacted with a kindred spirit; he wouldn’t do either of them any good by unleashing all his pent-up social energy in one burst. “Sorry,” he warbled, patting his friend on the shoulder. “It’s a compliment, coming from Arendelle’s one and only Ice Master.”
“Thanks,” Ryder said in an odd voice, his face no less pink than before.
“I’d love to learn how to sing like you,” Kristoff pushed the conversation forward, a bit confused by Ryder’s reaction. Maybe the shepherd just needed time to warm up to him again. “Only if you want to teach me, though,” he added, feeling exponentially awkward as he rambled on. “Either way, I brought my lute with me. It’s over in the sled, so.”
Ryder raised a brow. “You were serious about the lessons, then? You trust me not to break your family heirloom?”
“Ryder,” Kristoff gently shook his friend by the shoulder, trying to shake away his own insecurity along with it. “As long as I’m literally just spending time with you this week, I’ll be happy.”
Ryder seemed to have recovered from his previous embarrassment, huffing sympathetically. He placed a gloved hand on Kristoff’s forearm, rubbing a soothing thumb against his coat. “I take it that royal life is still kicking your ass?” he said lowly.
Kristoff side-eyed the man with an exaggerated look of pain, making Ryder clutch his ribs in a sudden fit of laughter. “I was gonna say—it must take a certain level of mental strain to make anyone this desperate to hang out with me in favor of domestic royal bliss.” He rolled his r , offering a curtsey to the herd of reindeer around them.
A large knot of tension released from Kristoff’s shoulders. There was the friend he’d missed so much.
To add to the silliness, he slid up to Sven — who was munching heartily on a tree branch — and dropped his voice low. “Oh, buddy. He doesn’t know the half of it.” Then Kristoff turned to chide his friend. “And hey, give yourself some credit! I like your company. You actually want to spend time with me.”
Ryder fixed him with a look that could only be described as motherly, characterized by both understanding and disapproval at his self-deprecation. After enduring months of strained, impersonal interactions inside the royal confines of Arendelle, that one knowing look made Kristoff feel like he was at the center of the universe.
The shepherd brushed his pants of twigs and snow and tossed him a large comb.
“C’mon,” he said kindly. “Let’s groom the reindeer while we talk.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m not averse to spending time by myself—with Sven, too, of course. And occasionally Olaf.” Kristoff could sense himself rambling again, frantically searching for a point. “And it’s not like I was completely shut out… Elsa invited me to the celebrations out here, too, of course, and I’m expected at a few house parties… But it was all under the pretense that I was Anna’s husband. I doubt that under any other circumstance would I be invited to the upper crust’s holiday festivities.”
He stopped to catch his breath, certain he sounded like a madman. “I didn’t want to spend this week alone! It’s Christmas, man… Do you see why I had to get out of there?”
“Yes,” Ryder confirmed, frowning. “That sounds terrible.”
“Since Elsa almost died last year, the only time Anna and I feel like a normal couple is when they’re in the room together.”
“What do you mean? Anna and Elsa?”
“Yeah,” Kristoff clarified. “It’s like she’s been using Elsa as a buffer so she doesn’t have to talk to me one-on-one, and… Ah, jeez.” He stood up and started pacing, remembering that awful night. “I finally tried to bring it up to Anna at our last Charades night, but before I could even get a word out, she started going on about how she was ‘too busy’ to visit the Christmas markets with me this year. Chalked it up to some bureaucratic nonsense. I don’t even care what the real reason was—the worst part was how relieved she seemed to have an excuse not to spend time with me!” He rolled his neck out anxiously, pausing to collect himself. “So I said as much. Maybe I shouldn’t have; she got really upset. Said I didn’t know what I was talking about. Then when I tried to comfort her, she started crying, going on about how I didn’t know how much she sacrificed for Arendelle, for Elsa, and for us.”
Ryder pursed his lips, eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Can I ask... Do you think that was the real reason she was upset?”
“God no!” Kristoff exclaimed. “I’m not a total idiot. I think she was just deflecting because whatever it is that she’s hiding is eating at her. She’s been hiding something ever since the wedding, but I’ve never pried into it until now.” He slapped his hands on his knees and addressed the open sky. “But look where that got me!”
Across the field, Sven turned his neck and made a sad face at Kristoff. Kristoff tilted his head and pouted back, walking backwards for a few steps before turning to sit next to Ryder again.
“That all sounds… complicated.”
Kristoff resisted a sigh. “Marriage usually is.”
Ryder grimaced. “Okay, but surely you weren’t expecting all of that to transpire a few months after the nuptials.”
“You know… I think I did expect something to go down eventually. I’ve always known how prone Anna was — and is — to spontaneity.”
Ryder tilted his head in question. “What do you mean?”
“Well, in the course of a few days, Anna got engaged to a man she just met, rode off into a snowstorm by herself, and then flew headfirst into a relationship with me. Now that she’s queen, the world is her oyster. She doesn’t have to ‘settle’ for anything, because she can always be satiated by new experiences. She can afford to get bored of people… of… of me.”
Kristoff fell silent, nudging a small trench in the snow with his boot. He was realizing that, while talking this through out loud with Ryder, he was reaching conclusions that he otherwise wouldn’t have reached back in Arendelle, where he had nobody to process this with. A lot of things were making sense, now that he thought about it.
Hesitantly, Ryder asked, “You don’t suppose she’s been, umm…”
Kristoff absently traced a shape in the snow on the log they were sitting on, the unspoken thought spinning knots in his heart.
“Maybe. I hope not. It— It would break my heart, but…” Kristoff lowered his voice to a whisper. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
An immediate pang of regret followed his words. Merely implying the possibility of Anna being unfaithful to him felt like a crime, like an insult to the crown. Kristoff had to resist looking over his shoulder to see if the castle guards had materialized to drag him away.
More than anything, Kristoff hoped it wasn’t true, but he didn’t know if he could trust his wife anymore. He hardly saw her, and when he did, she didn’t trust him enough to talk to him alone. It weighed on his conscience for reasons he couldn’t understand, reasons she refused to share with him. It hurt more than anything he’d ever felt before.
Lost in thought, Kristoff was surprised when Ryder silently bumped their shoulders together. Kristoff glanced at him, catching the concerned arch of the young shepherd’s eyebrows, the empathy gleaming in his clear blue eyes.
“Do you regret it?” Ryder asked softly, then elaborated at Kristoff’s look of curiosity. “Marriage, I mean. Do you regret it?”
“I don’t want to regret it.” He swallowed tremulously, flicking his gaze away from Ryder. For some reason, explaining his marital problems in excruciating detail felt easier than looking his friend in the eye. “When we got married, I was so sure she was the one. Anna seemed sure, too,” Kristoff added, to her credit. “But in hindsight, she’d also been sure about Hans, before he showed his true colors. I think my biggest fear is that she married me on a whim. That I was just… just one of her impulses.” He tried to blink away the blurriness in his eyes. At his feet, the trench he’d been kicking into the snowy ground had widened significantly. “Maybe that’s not very fair of me.”
“They’re your emotions, Kristoff. It doesn’t matter if they seem ‘fair.’”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to make this into some conspiracy theory. I know that she’s not a villain! I know she’s not plotting against me or trying to make me miserable. She’s just never around, and… part of me is kicking myself for hoping it would work out. She was a princess, and now she’s queen. I’m just some guy who cuts ice for a living.”
“Hey,” Ryder said, looking affronted on Kristoff’s behalf. “That ‘guy who cuts ice for a living’ happens to be funny, and kind, and sensitive… and he cares about other people, even when they hurt him. So don’t you dare insult that guy. You shouldn’t try to change for Anna. Or Elsa. Or anyone, for that matter. You’re just fine the way you are.”
Kristoff tried not to gape at him. He couldn’t remember anyone ever saying that to him, that he was just fine the way he was. He wasn’t sure he could believe it yet.
Ryder leaned in intentionally and waited on Kristoff to meet his stare. “Kristoff. Trust me, I tell myself the same thing.”
Kristoff tried not to gulp at their sudden proximity. The snowflakes in Ryder’s eyelashes were still there. Should he tell him?
Instead, he said, “Speaking from experience?”
“Well, yeah, of course.” Ryder said, like it was obvious. “Everyone has secrets, things they’re ashamed of.” He closed his eyes and raised his palms to the sky like a wise old sage. “Including the all-knowing Ryder Nattura.”
Kristoff snorted wetly. He couldn’t fathom what Ryder could possibly be ashamed of. The thought of his joyful, honest friend being ashamed of anything at all seemed like it would go against the natural order of things.
“Well?” Kristoff said expectantly, when Ryder made no move to elaborate.
Ryder jolted. “Oh, no no no — we’re here to psychoanalyze you, not me!”
“We’ve burnt all our daylight talking about me!”
”Well, yeah—but see how good the reindeer look? I should therapize you more often,” the shepherd grinned. “Besides, it makes me feel important.”
You are, Kristoff almost blurted out. You are important.
Ryder turned away, patting the nearest reindeer on the neck. “You do have a point though. It’s getting late. You ready to eat?”
“Oh yeah. Beef tongue, here I come.”
Ryder laughed wholeheartedly — “You’re so not ready!” — and started to guide the reindeer back to the beaten path.
Kristoff noted his friend’s deflection but decided not to push it. Ryder had already allowed Kristoff to burn up most of their time today. He wouldn’t be showing his gratitude by interrogating Ryder about things he didn’t want to talk about. Kristoff did wonder about how Ryder might react to him prodding. Would he brush Kristoff off, ignore him until he stopped asking? Would he become angry? Would he close himself off and act cold towards him?
Would he act like Anna?
Kristoff shook the thought from his mind, scolding himself.
Unlike himself, Ryder had never been very vulnerable in front of Kristoff. The man was always cheerful, always filled with joy that seemed to pour out of him when they were together. Even in his letters, the pages were filled with verve. All Kristoff had to do was ask, or even subtly imply his interest, and Ryder would zealously describe his life in the Northuldra tribe down to the smallest detail. He even glued charming little souvenirs onto his letters—nothing too heavy, of course. One week it was a square of an animal’s pelt from the day out hunting. Another, it was seeds from a preserved piece of fruit, taken from their winter stock. The next, it was a splash of vibrant paint in the shape of Ryder’s palm, made from the previous week’s fruit. Everything Ryder touched to the pages of his letters came to life like a fairy tale. And he never asked for anything in return. Kristoff would not take it for granted, but he couldn’t help wondering if there was a limit to his openness. How exclusive were their one-on-one conversations, anyway? How much would Ryder willingly tell Kristoff if he knew he really wanted to know?
Once again, Kristoff found himself perplexed at what the shepherd might be ashamed of. It had to be bad, right? To make someone so generous clam up and refuse to say it? What if someone had hurt Ryder, and he refused to get help? The possibility alarmed Kristoff, his train of thought inevitably returning to Arendelle, to his wife and her secrets. Kristoff knew he was projecting onto Ryder and reminded himself to reel it in. His home life certainly wasn’t mitigating his trust issues, but that didn’t mean that everyone was lying to him. Ryder was just a private guy.
As they quietly walked the path back to the camp, the warm glow of the man beside him pulling him into his orbit, the doubts and questions evaporated from Kristoff’s mind.
Maybe it was best not to dwell on at all.