Alex, his mask down, was leaning against the rugged wall of the cliff that looked like a wolf lying down, his brown hair streaked with traces of snow, and his goggles casually thrown to the side beside the bindings of the snowboard, the latter itself which was nowhere to be seen. In his hands now lowered was his phone, which had somehow survived his reckless stunts, and which he had been holding horizontally before him with the support of his knee, totally unlike a disaster victim in wait for rescue.
His appearance, as if he had come into the snowy world for a stroll, missing just a lounger, a sunshade, sunglasses, and a cocktail, and his bright grin, as he greeted him, made Mark take a deep breath. Before he could speak, however, Alex's eyes moved down to the helmet hanging on his belt, and he raised his eyebrows:
"Isn't that the headgear of my suit? I seem to have forgotten it earlier."
The casual tone did it for Mark. His breath got stuck in his chest, and his fists returned to being clenched, only, not out of nervousness this time. He suddenly unfastened the helmet from his waist, and threw it onto the ground beside Alex, splashing him with the powdery snow, then turned away to go back the way he came.
Alex's eyebrows flew up, and he stood up with a laugh:
"Hey, Mark, wait! Are you angry?"
Without waiting for Mark to reply, he ran to throw an arm around his shoulder, and looked at him, curious but still smiling:
"Why are you angry?"
Mark threw his arm off with a silent huff.
"Come on, don't be like that. Don't forget that the suit and the board have been designed with safety in mind. See, I didn't break anything, not a leg, nor an arm. Not even a finger."
Mark glared sideways at him then retorted, his tone rightfully snarky:
"You forgot the head."
Alex laughed and smoothly changed the subject:
"Anyway, now we have completed the last test in real conditions…"
Mark cast him a sidelong glance:
"Very real, indeed, and very extreme."
Pretending not to have heard anything, Alex continued with his smile unabated:
"After the results come out, we can move on with the plans for the release. The suit did a good job in absorbing impact and isolating temperature. As for the snowboard, hum…"
Alex looked back, his eyes thoughtful as he followed the path he had traced from the protruding cliff he had jumped off from to where he had hit the ground. After a moment, he raised a finger and pointed at an area that looked no different from the rest of the snowy piste then said with certainty:
"There. The snowboard promptly responded to contradictory forces and detached itself. It should be there, three to five meters deep, give or take, and in a circular area of five meters in diameter. Or radius. Let's go with the latter, for a better margin."
Mark slowed down and looked at Alex calmly:
"Are you sure?"
"Even if you don't trust my character, you should trust my mind, shouldn't you? Don't worry, I have considered most possible variables. Now, let's go!"
The answer came with a bright laughter, followed by a shoulder pat. Mark looked at Alex's cheerful back, and exhaled, a wisp of helplessness floating over to the corner of his lips. He shook his head slightly, and regained his calm. His pace recovered, and he replied as he caught up to Alex:
"Then I will have people dig it out later."
Soon, the helicopter which had lowered itself further rose up again after picking everyone, including the target of the rescue, and moved to return the way it had come from.
In the same seat he had been anxiously clenching and unclenching his fists in before, Mark, his seatbelt tight, leaned back, relaxed this time, and looked at Alex. The latter was sitting on the other side at the edge of the aircraft, watching the scenery below with his back against the doorframe, his left foot dangling in the air outside, and his right foot, pressed against the other side of the doorframe, supporting his right arm with the raised knee.
In one rare instance, the devilish air around him was no more, having melted for the most part into the background and taken over by a calm that smoothened his temperament, and brought out a different side of him. It was reflected in the small smile at his lips, and also in the soft glow of his brown eyes tainted by the white of the mountainous world below, and the bright blue of the sky above.
Feeling the gaze that fell on him, he looked up to find the source, and smiled, without any playful edge:
"Not angry anymore?"
Mark opened his mouth, but looking into Alex's smiling eyes, he closed it without making a sound, a complex gleam swirling in his dark eyes. He looked deeply at Alex, then exhaled, and leaned back to close his eyes. He opened his mouth again, and spoke this time, his voice calm and normal, as if he was making the conversation without caring if he would be heard:
"Some day, you might need to find another way to be carefree. Many are waiting for you to let go of some scars, and to put down some burdens. It has been ten years already."
Alex, one meter away, glanced at Mark, his smile unchanged, then turned away, maybe having heard the words amidst the noise of the rotors, or maybe not. He returned to looking at the clean and bright world outside, his chest calmly rising and falling, and his hair dancing in the wind.
The white rescue helicopter rose further in the sky, and accelerated, tearing through the wind as its noise, the reverberating sound of the rotors, became the sonorous background for the wide sky, and the world of cold and white below, while the whistling of the wind became the background for the thoughts wrapped in silence inside the flying contraption.