Chapter Text
Albedo first encounters the snowboarder on a backcountry trail, upside-down with his torso buried in a snow drift. His legs and board hang akimbo in the air above, and his muffled sounds of distress are audible from beneath the snow. Albedo pulls him out, fueled as much by his own curiosity as concern for this person’s well-being.
“Are you hurt?” is the first thing Albedo asks him when he emerges, caked in snow from his head to his waist.
“I’m fine, just c-cold,” he says, shaking snow off himself like a miniature avalanche. “Good thing the snow was super soft, it broke my fall.”
“You must have been going fast.”
“Ha ha, I guess I was! I must’ve hit a tree root or something with my board, because the next thing you know…” He gestures with his hands, miming a figure flipping over and landing upside-down. “I’m so glad you saved me. If I was stuck there for much longer, I felt like my face was gonna freeze off!”
Albedo is about to reply with something sarcastic, like perhaps that would have been a change for the better, but then the snowboarder removes his helmet and goggles, shaking snow out of his hair, and this interrupts Albedo’s train of thought. He looks young—in his 20’s, perhaps, with doe-like amber eyes framed with long lashes. He’s got blonde hair that’s short around his face and longer in the back, where he wears it tied into a long single braid. He is, unfortunately, extremely pretty. But Albedo’s long since become desensitized to pretty boy snowboarders. Especially the ones that barely have two functioning brain cells to rub together. Based on past experience and current evidence, this particular specimen is a special breed of idiot.
“This side of Dragonspine is extremely dangerous,” Albedo tells him. “It’s off the map and not patrolled. If you got seriously injured, you could die out here quite easily.”
“Then I guess I was especially lucky you happened across me when you did,” the idiot says, flashing Albedo a pearl-white smile that makes the pit of his stomach lurch. Then, slowly, those guileless eyes take on a shade of something else, something more complex. He holds Albedo’s gaze for a moment that is slightly too long, then says, “You’re Albedo, aren’t you? The world-class skier?”
Albedo stares at him, thoughts whirling inside his head. Was he a fan? Or was it just a lucky guess?
Either way, there’s no use trying to hide his identity now. “I am, yes.”
“That’s great. I’ve been trying to get in touch with you.” The idiot’s grin grows even wider. “I heard a tip in town that you liked to ski around here. But I wasn’t actually expecting to run into you. I guess that makes me three times lucky.”
This can only spell trouble, Albedo’s inner voice warns. “I’m sorry. I’m not skiing professionally any more,” he tells him. “So, whoever you are, and whatever your business with me is, I suggest you pursue it with someone else.”
“My name’s Aether,” the snowboarder says, apparently undeterred by Albedo’s flat rejection. “And I’m not seeking you out for anything bad, I promise!” He pauses, either for dramatic effect or to muster up his courage, and continues, “I just wanted to shoot you.”
❄
“...In my documentary film, I mean,” Aether clarifies, when he shows up uninvited at the front doorstep of Albedo’s cabin that night. “I’m a filmmaker that specializes in extreme sports, and I want to do one about you.”
Albedo nearly slams the door in his face. But it’s late at night, and a storm is brewing on the mountain, and he doesn’t trust the idiot to not get buried in a snow drift again if he leaves him unattended. So he invites him inside.
“How did you find me?”
“You haven’t made it easy, that’s for sure!” Aether laughs to himself. “First I went to Jean, your old coach. But she told me you essentially went MIA and cut off nearly all communication since you unexpectedly quit two years back. Then I talked to some of your fellow athletes, and Sucrose told me you’d moved to Dragonspine and were still skiing, just not competing anymore. So I went into town and asked around.” He shrugs. “Did you know, you’re kind of like a local cryptid? Lots of people mentioned seeing you out on the slopes, but nobody knew where exactly you lived or what you’ve been doing. I finally got some good information from Timaeus after buying him a couple rounds, and he told me he sometimes did deliveries of food and supplies up to your cabin, but he wouldn’t give me an address.”
Listening to him ramble on, Albedo becomes more and more puzzled each passing second. “You never answered my initial question. How did you find me? This place isn’t marked on any map, and I’ve taken pains to make myself as anonymous as possible.”
“...Oh!” Aether’s face lights up. “That one’s easy. I have a drone!”
Albedo just stares blankly. “...A drone.”
“Yeah! I named it Paimon. I’ll show you later, if you want.”
So, this person is clearly an obsessive fan, a stalker, or most likely both, and now he’s sitting in Albedo’s living room, drinking a cup of over-steeped earl grey tea. He could easily be plotting to murder Albedo right now, possibly by using this drone to hunt him for sport. But Albedo can’t lie to himself: there’s something fascinating about this... snowboarder? Filmmaker? Idiot, his brain helpfully reminds him. Although he’s starting to suspect that Aether might be less of an idiot than he initially thought.
“Are you stalking me?” Albedo asks him, point-blank.
“Stalking is such a harsh word,” Aether whines. “I prefer the term investigating. That’s what my sister does. She’s a documentarian, too—an investigative journalist. She goes into active war zones and exposes corrupt politicians and stuff. Compared to what she does, I’m not nearly so badass.” He meets Albedo’s eye, and smiles. “I am pretty good at what I do, though. Want to see?”
Again, Albedo’s curiosity gets the better of him, so he agrees. Aether pulls out a small laptop from his messenger bag, places it on the living room table, and plays a demo reel of his work. It’s immediately apparent to Albedo that this is the real deal: Aether’s films feature shot after breathtaking shot of extreme feats of athletic achievement, from snowboard tricks to cliff jumping to a surfer riding a crashing wave. Every shot is rendered in luxurious, high-quality slow motion, and shot with an eye that captures not just the action, but the emotions that the athletes are feeling at their peak performance. Whatever else Aether may be, he certainly knows what he’s doing here.
Albedo watches in silence until the demo reel ends and Aether pulls the laptop away.
“So? What did you think?”
Albedo’s not sure what to say in response. The artistry is obvious, but aside from being a pro athlete himself, he’s hardly been one for these sorts of films. The spectacle of it always falls short, once he’s experienced the real thing.
Instead of responding to Aether’s question, Albedo answers him with a question of his own. “Why me?”
“Why not you? You’re fascinating,” Aether says like it’s nothing. “You’ve got back-to-back Olympic silver medals, and you set the world record for Giant Slalom. They called you a prodigy, one of the greatest skiers in a generation. And then, just two years ago and in the prime of your career, you unexpectedly told the world that you were quitting, and afterwards totally vanished from the public eye.” He wears a painfully earnest look on his face as he says, “Why wouldn’t I want to know more?”
“You’ve apparently done your research,” Albedo says, “But all of those are things you could read about on the news. I fail to grasp why even this would be worth the effort you have apparently undergone in order to track me down, to the point of using a drone to conduct an aerial survey so that you could locate this cabin.”
“Ah, well...” Aether’s smile drops from his face, and for the first time he actually looks a bit nervous in Albedo’s presence. “I also... heard about your brother. He... died in a ski accident, didn’t he?”
Albedo doesn’t respond, but he grips the arm of the couch until his knuckles turn chalk-white. He forces himself to inhale and exhale before speaking again. “So researching my career and stalking me with your drone apparently wasn’t enough for you. You also felt the need to pry into my personal life.”
“Th—it’s not that,” Aether protests. “...Okay, well, it kind of is. But the death was reported publicly too, in a local obituary. The timing of it matches up perfectly with when you announced you were quitting the team. It just makes sense as an explanation for why you left.”
Albedo sighs, staring sullenly into the fire. “You don’t know anything.”
“Maybe not, but I want to!” protests Aether. “I want to know more, to understand you better. The way you ski, it’s like nothing else I’ve ever seen. I’d give anything to be able to capture that on film, but only if you let me.”
“I’m retired,” Albedo reminds him. “I have no interest in... helping inspire the youth of tomorrow, or anything like that.”
“I know,” Aether says. “But also, I know... you’re planning to ski the Nail, aren’t you?”
Albedo’s gaze sharpens and he sits bolt-upright. “Who told you that?!”
“Nobody told me. I figured it out for myself,” Aether says. “The Skyfrost Nail on the peak of Dragonspine mountain is one of the deadliest drop-offs in the world. It’s actually illegal to ski it because of how many people have died trying. And it was trying to ski the Nail that cost your brother his life.” His eyes meet Albedo’s, shimmering like twin pools of liquid gold. “That’s the reason you’re here on Dragonspine, isn’t it? You’ve been training these past two years—practicing so that you can ski the Nail. And I want to film you when you do.”
Albedo stares at the person sitting in his living room. Gone is the affable, bumbling idiot he’d encountered that morning ass-over-head in a snow drift. The Aether sitting at his table is altogether different, passionate and intense and seemingly in tune with Albedo’s own desires, plans he hadn’t even spoken of to anyone outside of his private journals.
Maybe this could work, his traitorous inner voice says. This could be what you need: the final push of courage to do what it takes so that you can get your resolution.
It has nothing to do with the doe-eyed documentarian himself, Albedo reassures himself, nor with the strange cocktail of emotions that brews in the pit of his stomach when he meets Aether’s startlingly intense gaze, taking all of him in like a slow-motion camera.
Resigned to his new fate, Albedo tells him, “Once the weather clears, I’m going to give you a test. If you pass, then and only then will I consider the possibility of allowing you to film me skiing the Skyfrost Nail.”
Aether’s intense aura fades into one of elation. “Really? You mean it? Awesome!”
“Not so fast,” Albedo warns with a raised hand to tell him to stop celebrating just yet. “I never said the test was going to be easy, and I never said yes to allowing you to film me. If you don’t respect my wishes, and you continue to violate my boundaries without informing me first, I will tell my network of the way you stalked and harassed me today, and make sure you can never work with professional athletes in any sport ever again.”
Aether’s adam's apple bobs up and down nervously. “U-understood,” he quails under the force and magnitude of Albedo’s threat.
“Good. Glad we’re on the same page.” Albedo stands up. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed. I can’t let a day slip by in my training, or it could set me back weeks.”
“Roger that,” says Aether. “Um, you wouldn’t happen to have a second bed around here, would you...?”
“Just the one. You’re sleeping on the couch,” Albedo says, gesturing to the lumpy and uncomfortable abomination in his living room.
Aether regards the couch with a withering look and despondently fluffs a pillow.
“Are you sure there are no other options…?”
“If you are unsatisfied with the couch, you’re welcome to try the floor,” Albedo tells him, although there really isn’t a ton of floor space here. His cabin is meant for one person, and even then, it’s cozy. There’s a reason Albedo barely spends his time here other than to sleep and eat, preferring to spend his days out on the slopes.
“No, that’s fine, it’s fine,” Aether walks back his previous statement regarding the couch, although his eyes still betray his discomfort as he eyes the gray, misshapen thing.
“Good. Get some rest and be ready to go early tomorrow morning,” Albedo tells him. “Your test begins at sunrise.”
“Understood,” says Aether. “...And, Albedo? Thanks for giving me a chance. I promise it’ll be worth it.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Albedo tells him. “You still haven’t seen the test. Once you see what I’m putting you through, you might change your mind about wanting to film me.”