A few years later, Kristoff's visit brings Anna down some old trains of thought.

Chapter Text

Epilogue I

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“Sven wait!”

Sven did not wait. Anna laughed as he galloped over Kristoff, out of the car, and leapt into her open arms.

She hugged him tight. “I can see you missed me, didn’t you.” She ruffled his ears. “You big mutt, you’re even clumsier than the last time I saw you.”

“Sorry, sorry!” Kristoff jogged over, looking half apologetic despite his laughter. “We just really missed you, didn’t we, Sven!”

“I missed you too.” Anna smiled as Sven gave her a big lick across the face, then set him down gently. “Take turns, Sven,” she said. “You’re not the only one who gets a hug.”

Kristoff leaned down and wrapped his arms around her. “It’s so good to see you,” he said. Pulling back, he gave her shoulders a squeeze. “How old are you now? You have this aura of successful adulthood about you that wasn’t there the last time I visited.”

“I’m twenty-two,” Anna said. “There’s a whole Taylor Swift song about how hip and cool I am right now.”

He rolled his eyes and adjusted the bag on his shoulder. “Sure you are. Let’s see this hip and cool apartment of yours then. It’s seriously way too hot out here.”

“You call this hot?” Anna stuck her tongue out at him on their way up the stairs. “This is what I call a perfect day.”

“Maybe for you.”

Sven seemed to know which apartment was hers already as he ran up the stairs ahead of them and stopped in front of her door. “Good boy,” she called up. “You’re such a smart dog.”

“Oh come on, I could have done that if I wasn’t stuck carrying all of Sven’s stuff.”

“And how would you have known it was my door?” Anna asked as she fumbled with her keys.

“Uh, there’s a horseshoe tacked to the front?”

“Point taken.” Anna unlocked the door and threw it open. “Ta-da!” she said, gesturing grandly to the interior. “I proudly present my new apartment. Inside you will find one bedroom, no roommates, and a futon that should fit both you and Sven.”

“Nice place,” Kristoff said, dropping his bag inside the door. “Your first one without a roommate, right?”

“Yep!” Anna crashed down on the couch and patted the seat next to her. “That makes me a real adult and everything now, I’m pretty sure.” Sven made it to the seat before Kristoff did. Anna pulled him into his lap for cuddles and scratched behind his ears.

“I think you’ve been one since you left,” he said. He sat down on the other side of Sven and kept looking around the apartment. Anna had cleaned before he arrived, but she half expected to turn her head and see a mess she’d missed somehow. Kristoff seemed honestly impressed, however. “How’s your degree going? I know you sent an email but it was a little hard to follow.”

Anna walked him through the nonsensical path her education had taken, from community college to a state school, then a transfer when that wasn’t working out well. She had the sense that if Elsa or Idunn had been around, they’d have a much more efficient way of figuring all that out. But they hadn’t been, so Anna had made it all work out eventually.

“Horse medicine huh.” Kristoff scratched at his five o’clock shadow. “So, uh, does that pay well?”

Anna nodded. “Well enough for me. I’ve gotten by well enough in the past couple years. Basic stable work is, well, stable.” She laughed. “I’ve even made something of a reputation for myself. I have a good knack for training and keeping top competitive riders from letting the stress drive them crazy.”

Kristoff raised an eyebrow. “That’s a marketable skill?”

She shrugged. “It comes off better by word of mouth than by resume, but yeah. High-pressure athletes need maintenance almost as much as the horses do.” Her thoughts drifted briefly to Elsa and she gently tugged them back. “So how’re you doing up north, in the land of too-damn-cold?”

He chuckled. “Hey, it’s not like I live in Canada.” Sven rolled off of Anna’s lap and started sniffing around the apartment. “But things are going well enough.” He gestured around them grandly. “I mean, here I am, on a real, actual vacation. That’s gotta mean something, right? Things are going really well at the wilderness preserve. I give tours, talk sternly to people about leaving no trace, and get to take Sven on walks while I’m at work. Doesn’t get much better than that.”

“That’s a pretty sweet gig.”Anna smiled. “Plus, it totally fits you. Mountain Man Kristoff. Boldly exploring a thoroughly explored wilderness preserve with his fearless companion!” Sven looked over from where he was exploring the kitchen, then went back to his expedition.

“In the winter, I dress Sven up as a reindeer and make a few extra bucks having him give kids rides in a sleigh I rigged up.”

“I can’t tell you how many pony rides I do at fairs and such.” Anna smiled. “That sounds like a cute setup though. I’d love to see it.”

“You should come for a visit this winter,” he said. “Get a good dose of snow in you while you’re at it.”

“It snows here.”

“Not enough to be healthy.”

“I’ll dispute that,” Anna said, though she didn’t add anything else. They fell into a comfortable silence and watched Sven jump into a stuffed armchair. He struggled for a minute to fit himself on it comfortably before eventually finding a position with both his front legs on the floor and the rest of his body lying in the chair.

“So how’s the dating scene down south?”

If it had been anyone else asking, Anna would have taken it as a pickup line. Instead, she shrugged. “I’m single right now, but the ‘scene’ has treated me well a couple times.”

“So are you ever going to call her?” He raised an eyebrow.

She sighed, but it was a light sound. “Just gonna cut to the chase there, huh.”

“It’s not the sort of thing I’d bring up on skype, but... I have to ask, don’t I?” He tilted his head.

She sighed. “Of course you do. Well... I dunno. It’s gone in phases, I suppose. Phase one was right after I moved out. I kept feeling convinced that I was about to call, always on the verge of being ready to reach out to Elsa.” She chuckled. “That faded after a couple months. I started seeing a few people and kicked off phase two.”

“Phase two?” Kristoff patted his lap and Sven slipped off the chair to come sit in his lap.

“Being convinced I was absolutely never going to call.” Anna swept a few bangs away from her face. “That’s when I stopped bringing her up all the time when we were chatting.”

“I’d kind of wondered about that.” Kristoff regarded her oddly. “So... is phase two over then? You still haven’t brought her up, which is why I’ve been so curious lately.”

Anna hugged a knee to her chest. “I guess... I guess I’m in stage three now? In some ways, I would be okay never calling. I’ve disentangled myself from attaching my whole life to the Elsa issues and... I know I could just move on and keep on living my life. In a sense, I guess I have moved on.”

Kristoff raised his eyebrows. “You don’t want to call then?”

“I... didn’t say that.” Anna bit her lip. “I do still want to call. It’s just that I’ve reached a point now where I could choose not to and... and that would be okay too. And, since it’s taken so damn long to reach this point, and since... well a lot of reasons, I feel like I have an obligation to not call, to let it go.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Sven and Anna looked up at him in confusion. “Wasn’t this The Plan though? That you’d pull back and find yourself and shit and then, maybe, be able to pick things back up again one day. When it was a choice, not a compulsion.” He tilted his head again, looking oddly like Sven. “It sounds like you’re there now.”

Anna blinked. “I... I guess so.” She had, maybe, gotten too good at setting the Elsa issue aside. She felt slow to process what Kristoff was saying. She knew he’d bring it up, but hadn’t expected it to be so soon. “It’s not weird?” she asked.

“Still weird,” he said. “But... I’ve never judged. You listen to me talk and get conflicted about my ‘weird’ troll cult upbringing and haven’t judged once when I’ve brought up reclaiming some of the weird religious stuff. If you’re going to reach out and maybe strike up a relationship again with your half-sister, my main concern as your friend is that you, Anna Wintergale, are okay. That’s all I care about.”

Anna regarded him for a long, quiet moment. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “I... I know I’m okay about all this. It’s taken forever, but I’m ready.” She paused. “My main worry is that I’m gonna call too soon for her though.”

He sat forward and Sven took that as a signal to fall off of his lap. “That’s on her then,” he said. “You’ve clearly got your shit together, but pulling this off will be a 50/50 effort. If her half isn’t there, then... it’s just not. You move on and it’s basically the same if you hadn’t called at all.”

“I’ll be kind of in the area for a horse show in a couple months...” Anna trailed off.

“That’s too soon for winter.” Kristoff stuck out his tongue. “You’re gonna miss Sven’s reindeer outfit.”

“I’ll visit again in the winter,” she snapped. “But anyway, I was gonna ask you if I could drop by and see your log cabin mountain man place at the park.”

He smiled. “The square footage isn’t great, but the view is to die for.”

“I’ll go visit you and...” Her voice caught. She cleared it more easily than she remembered the feeling passing. “Maybe, if it still feels alright, I’ll give Elsa a call while I’m in town.”

“Sounds like a plan then.” He stretched out. “In the meantime, I need to know where your bathroom is. Also, you said we could try and get Sven to make friends with one of your horses.”

“Oh is that what I said?” Anna chuckled as she pointed him to the bathroom. “Did you ask Sven if he wanted to make friends with a horse?”

She couldn’t make out his answer through the bathroom door, but she rolled her eyes anyway. Sven, for his part, was lying splayed out on the kitchen floor. She poured him a bowl of water and sat beside him. “Have you ever met a horse, Sven?” she asked.

He nudged his nose against the water bowl, but made no move to get off the floor. She and Kristoff hadn’t talked about it, but he was getting on in the age department. He’d bounced around the apartment at first, but clearly needed a break.

“You’re gonna have to get moving soon enough,” she said. Looking out from the kitchen floor made her apartment seem like strange space filled with light and an odd sense of atmosphere. “Are you ready for an adventure, Sven?” she asked.

He perked up his ears and wagged the tip of his tail.

She smiled. “I’m always ready for an adventure.”