[ IP ] It 's who we were .

Lukas knew the lands of his people well ever since he started walking. He had grown up in the wild unlike most others, learning every trail and back-alley outside of the bunkers. It did n't take long for him to understand how to traverse the landscape and it took even him an even shorter amount of time to find work. As he grew up in the wasteland, he was accustomed to the harsh environment and he was n't only an excellent scout, but one of the greatest messengers in the entire land. 
 
 But he knew the history of his people well, too. They did not always live in the underground bunkers of the world, and they were not like the nomadic mercenary tribes that he hailed from. Instead, he remembered hearing of his people walking the stars that littered the sky. Not walking, he thought, but flying. He often dreamed of flying, taking to the great sky above and floating on the clouds. It was a dream of his, to fly. 
 
 Yet he knew flying was only a legend to his people, an idea that kept them dreaming. And kept them hoping. 
 
 Lukas could not flow though, but he could ride. His horse, Stormrider, named after his birth during one of the fiercest storms hit his home, was one of the best horses in the land, and he did not come cheap. It took Lukas a few years to save up for him, but he was happy he did. He and Stormrider had ridden the land more than a dozen times in the last month along, and they were not stopping. 
 
 He often rode past the Great Flyer, on his way from one bunker to another, and he took his time as well. He believed Stormrider enjoyed the view as much as did and the two often gazed upon the monument of man and imagined what it would be like to ride into the sky. Maybe they would one day return to the stars, Lukas tried to imagine the day, when his people united with each other and the bunkers and used their combined knowledge of the land, and of the world before, to head into the Stars above. 
 
 It was a dream though. That is all it ever was, and Lukas knew that as he stared at the great white monument, taken over by the land he knew like the back of his hand. He did imagine what the interior of the Great Flyer looked like, artificial like the bunkers, cold like the floor of those places, but beautiful in a way that nature could not rival. 
 
 He loved his land, and he would never say otherwise, but he enjoyed the beauty of what the bunkers said. How his people once lived in these great artificial homes and did not need nature to survive. Or not as much, he thought, they still needed to eat. Lukas did know however that many people hated the artificiality of the old world and in part, it is because of that reason that lands are barren and destroyed. He always appreciated it though, how the Great Flyer's magnificence was emphasized by the natural landscape behind it. It was a mountain, he imagined, in and of itself. 
 
 A mountain that could take people to the Stars Above and lead them on a path to something greater. 
 
 Stormrider hit his foot against the soft ground a few times and Lukas flashed back into reality instead of his thoughts. Of course, he still had a job to do and he knew that his daydreaming would n't help him and his people take this Great Flyer to Space. But the letters he carried, correspondence between the Bunkers, could be a stepping stone to the Stars. 
 
 He took one last look at it, the white ship, forever encapsulated by nature's great hands. Only the Bunkers had the technology to help remove it, but only his people had the manpower to yield it. Maybe, he thought, they could do it. 
 ______ 
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