Eagle of Twilight Line

A liquid metal helmet used for high speed flight, with a beak like that of the Skyfish Eagle.

Every day at dawn the sky fishers of Salsotto set out from the moving city's “Sky Harbor”, spread their wings, beat them and rise into the air to catch the Burning Jellyfish that come flying out of the sand flats.

What they yield, the “Spirit Fire”, is the very blood that keeps the giant mobile city running, and enough of it must be caught to make sure the whole city is not left behind by the twilight line.

If someone dies of exhaustion, or is killed by a giant beast, the people of Salsotto will do everything they can to bring the remains home, and bury them together with the flight suit and the eagle helmet in the dark earth. In the traditional rites of Salsotto, “landing” means death, an eternal rest.

The flying cannot stop, and neither can the city.

A line of eulogy is engraved on the beak of this helmet. “The ground is not the eagle's shackle, but its wings. For its sake, you must fly high.”

The ring worn on the hand of a master sky fisher, shaped as the spread wings of a Skyfish Eagle wrapped tightly around the finger.

Only the fishing captains with the finest skill, the greatest respect and the deepest trust are awarded the “Soaring Ring”. They blow the fishing whistle in the air and organize tight coordination, and they are the most superb of hunting eagles.

For the members of a team, every flight is lonely and fragile, and they can rely only on the 124 “whistle calls” sent out by their captain.

And so a saying is passed down in Salsotto: “The sky fishers who form a fishing team give one third of their lives to the techniques they have painstakingly honed, and one third of their lives to their superb and delicate equipment. And the last third they hand over to the fishing captain they trust.”

A captain entrusted by so many different families always feels the weight of that small ring.

The engraving on this Soaring Ring has worn away in patches, and on its inner face one word is carved: “responsibility”.

The harness that connects the flight suit, with the supporting metal hidden inside a plain, soft strap that fits the body well.

It is not at all easy for Salsotto's sky fishers to surround and catch the Burning Jellyfish that come flying out of the sands. Facing chaotic air currents, the harness looks soft at first glance, but in the skies outside the city where strong winds sweep through, it becomes the cord that a sky fisher's life is bound to.

It is no simple thing to cleanly catch the Burning Jellyfish flying out of the sands. From the feint, to the drive, to the interception, every single step carries the risk of falling.

Sky fishers who have not yet come of age must take a strand of hair from their father and their mother and tuck it into the harness alongside the supporting metal, and those who are married take a strand from their partner instead. A winged suit harness prepared this way receives the blessing of the place called “home”, and protects the sky fishers so that they always return.

In a world of brutal survival, only “home” can comfort a sky fisher.

The strand of hair in this harness is still intact. It belonged to a woman, and the root of it is slightly white.

Wraps that keep the legs warm in flight, decorated with the feathers of the Skyfish Eagle.

The hunt for Burning Jellyfish carried out by the sky fishers of Salsotto is a long race for survival. The legs, far from the heart, need the help of quilted puttees to stay warm.

Only after a long and tense hunt has ended does the body reach its limit and begin to reveal its pain and exhaustion.

For fishers who did not prepare well enough, this is the moment they feel the local necrosis caused by severe frostbite. That is why, before setting out, every sky fisher checks the tightness of the wraps again and again, for when flying at high speed there is no second chance to adjust them.

In the moment they step into the sky, they know what the wind will carry away.

Inside the metal shell of these wraps there are traces of a small amount of lime powder and aluminum powder, of the sort used for emergency heating.