The Eagle Riders' Guild

One Bird, One Rider

A rider is raised alongside a newly hatched Aether Eagle and flies with that bird and no other for the rest of their life. An eagle will not carry anyone it has not bonded with, and if the rider dies first, the bird is said to age out having never taken another person onto its back. Because of the nature of that bond the guild cannot simply decide to have more riders: the number depends on how many eggs hatch, and on whether a given chick accepts a given human at all.

A Guild That Does Not Answer to the Council

The Eagle Riders' Guild sits outside The Canopy Council and runs itself as a mutual society. Its riders have carried emergency cargo and people through every period in which the Wind Bridges were closed for political reasons, and neither realm is willing to move against it. Even the powerful of the upper isles — Ishinochō among them — tolerate the guild's independence, because a Council that made enemies of the riders would be a Council with no way to move anything in a crisis.

Ties to the Lower Isles

There is an old belief that eagle eggs will not hatch on the upper isles, and most riders come from lower-isle families, Sora Kazamachi's among them. That skew in origin is one reason the guild keeps its distance from the Council's oligarchy. Inside the guild, rank by birth barely functions; the bond with a bird is very nearly the only thing that is weighed. In a society organised around the upper isles, that is close to a scandal.

When a Bird Dies First

It is rare for an eagle to age past its rider, but when it happens the rider follows a custom known as the Sending. Whoever has sat with a dying bird does not seek another bond; they move into teaching younger riders instead. When the rider dies first, the bird left behind usually opens to no one, and in time flies out into the middle air and does not return. The guild calls this the last loyalty, and does not send anyone after it.

The Misunderstanding About Choosing

Outsiders tend to assume that a rider chooses a bird. Within the guild it is told the other way round: the choosing is always the eagle's. At the Facing, the ceremony in which candidates gather around a newly hatched chick, it is not unusual for the chick to approach nobody and stay outside the circle, in which case the ceremony is carried to the following year. The guild's older riders say the same thing about it, in nearly the same words: no good bond was ever made by a person in a hurry.