"A reindeer is simply not a suitable best man."

Kristoff rubbed his forehead with one hand and tried to stop himself from saying something he'd regret. The old advisor's opinion wasn't something he hadn't heard a dozen times before, but each time tried his patience a little more than the last.

"Really," Andres continued, "it's not-"

"He," Kristoff muttered.

Andres's cheeks turned pink.

"He's not even a man!"

"But he is my best friend."

Andres shook his head as he shuffled his papers into a pile. Kristoff hoped it was a sign that their conversation was at an end. The faster Andres disappeared with his color swatches and seating charts, the happier he'd be, and when the wedding was finally over, he'd be happier still… because then, he'd have Anna for always. And Andres would leave the castle for good.

"Surely, a prince consort, with an entire kingdom of his sister-in-law-to-be's subjects at his disposal could find a few human men of respectable parentage to-"

Kristoff stood and folded his arms over his chest. He towered over Andres, who trailed off and tilted his head to look up at him, his expression anxious.

"Have you kept your appointments with the tailors? Your shoulders look broader."

"I will fit in my suit," Kristoff said dully. "And the only other friends I have are ice harvesters."

He watched as Andres's face slowly lost its color.

"Ice harvesters?"

"Jens and Eirik would do it, if I asked them." And then they'd be completely insufferable all day. But he didn't say that. "What? You knew I was an ice harvester when I met Anna."

"I thought it was an unfortunate rumor." He tugged at his cravat.

"No." Kristoff stretched his arms out and cracked his knuckles, watching Andres look increasingly ill. "I still join in when I have time." Which wasn't often these days, but the advisor didn't need to know that. "You should hear the way they swear. And the way they smell-"

"Mr. Bjorgman!"

Kristoff pressed his lips together and tried not to smile.

"Still opposed to the reindeer?" he asked. "He talks, too."

"He-"

"But only to me," Kristoff added. Andres stared at him for a long moment, then took a deep breath and lifted his chin higher.

"We will revisit this subject after I speak with Her Majesty. Sometimes," he said as he opened the door and stepped into the hall, "I am simply not sure what Princess Anna sees in you."

"You and me both," Kristoff said into the empty room.

He left the castle and wandered out to the grounds, heading straight for the stables. He stopped to grab some carrots from the stable boys who kept them stocked daily, one of the many signs that Elsa liked Sven more than the pompous advisor she'd hired to oversee her sister's wedding. He had no doubt that if he wanted a reindeer to be his best man, Elsa would give him her royal blessing, regardless of which dignitaries were attending or how much of an apoplexy it would cause Andres. He and Elsa had become friends.

And if anyone had told him a year and a half ago that he'd one day befriend a queen and marry a princess, he would have pushed them straight down the mountain. After he finished laughing.

Sven lifted his head and lazily rose to all fours in his stall, which was, as always, stocked with warm, fresh straw, clean water, and more oats than a reindeer could eat. But his eyes seized on the carrots in Kristoff's hand.

"Hi, buddy." He rubbed the top of Sven's head with one hand and took a bite out of the biggest carrot before Sven strained from the stall and gobbled up the rest. Kristoff watched him eat the rest of the carrots while he leaned against the gate and absently stroked Sven's coat. It was much cleaner and smoother than he'd ever been able to keep it in the mountains. Once the carrots were gone, Sven tilted his head and nudged his shoulder.

Kristoff sighed.

"I know, buddy. This wedding scares me, too."

"But you love Anna and you want to marry her," he said in Sven's voice.

"Of course I do." He narrowed his eyes. "And I will. I'll wear the suit. And the medals." He shifted from foot to foot. "I'm even getting better at dancing."

"Then what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." He raked his hand through his hair. It had grown even longer than usual and Andres had ordered his to cut or pomade it back before the wedding. He wasn't especially interested in either. "Everything."

Kristoff rubbed between the reindeer's ears, and Sven closed his eyes with a noise that almost sounded like a purr. At least one of them was happy.

"Did I tell you my family can't come to the wedding?" he asked quietly. "And if you're not there either, then… then I'm alone, facing hundreds of strangers who don't think I'm good enough."

Sven opened his eyes and shook his head.

"But you have Anna and Elsa."

"I know." He looked away. "And they're enough. Of course they're enough. This is… it shouldn't bother me."

"But it reminds you that you're an orphan."

Kristoff grimaced.

"I wish you weren't so smart sometimes."

Sven snorted and tossed his head.

"And I wish you would remember that I'm an orphan, too."

That wasn't Sven's voice. Kristoff jerked up and turned around, finding himself face to face with his fiancee. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair hung perilously close to falling free from its pins, and she was dressed in a dusty riding habit.

She was absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous, and he wanted to kiss her until neither one of them remembered their names, let alone this embarrassing conversation. She smiled and tripped straight into his arms as if she knew exactly what he was thinking.

"I'm an orphan, too, you know," she said into his chest as her arms wrapped tight around his back. "I don't have anyone to see me down the aisle."

"You have cousins, great aunts, dukes, people with seven names and even more titles-"

"Mmm," Anna said, burrowing closer, "not the same."

"You have Elsa."

"You have Sven," she countered, then leaned up on her toes. "And…"

"And?" He leaned his forehead against hers.

"We have each other. And that's enough."

When she wound her arms around his neck and kissed him, it felt like enough. Somehow, this one small woman made up for every lonely feeling he'd ever had. It seemed so unlikely, so terribly, undeservedly lucky, that he forgot sometimes. But it was enough. She was enough.

Realizing his friends were preoccupied and uninterested in procuring more carrots, Sven snorted and settled back into his straw.

Kristoff smiled against Anna's mouth, suddenly feeling better than he had all morning.

Sven really was too smart sometimes.