2026-04-16
A hawker is a trader of goods from the layers of the skyline. Most hawkers sell in the markets and malls of the emergent layer, though some venture to the ground layer. Hawkers are organized not by store or trading firm, but as individuals. Inventory is usually specific to the hawker, and hawkers move regularly between markets and malls.
In some places on the ground layer,[Where?] a common social activity, especially among young people, is to travel to the nearest emergence market to see which hawkers are in and look for novel or sought-after goods.
After the Sinerian Republic (203 words) established permanent settlements in the emergence, regular contact was established between the surface and the bird-folk (175 words), who do not often leave the skyline, and live higher than the emergence. Markets sprung up around the natural skyscrapers (184 words) that the Sinerians used to reach the emergent layer.
Initially, the hawkers’ wares were mostly curiosities. Jewelry made from the air-rock (254 words) of the supernesting layer (98 words) was fashionable amongst Sinerian elites, and to a lesser extent in other ground layer polities. The discovery of air-rock based flight, and the subsequent Sinerian rocket program (233 words), led to explosive growth in the hawker industry. During the height of the rocket program, twenty to thirty percent of Sinerian economic output was exchanged with hawkers for air-rock.
Nowadays, hawkers are reclusive, and public large-volume sales to ground layer organizations are rare. There have been investigations (121 words) into secret air-rock transactions, but little is known about the extent of such deals. Intimidation, censorship, and denial often meets those who look further.[Threat]
Some[Who?] claim that the term hawker is disparaging. The term is word-play on the verb hawk, to sell, and hawk, the bird. A majority of hawkers are bird-folk. The term was coined during the wars following the Vermillion disaster (197 words), when bird-folk hawkers sold air-rock to all factions and enjoyed relative prosperity. Bird-folk sentiment on the term is unknown.