The Wasteland and I (Open)

How many Hollows did that make?

Ten? Twenty?

To tell the truth the hero of honor had lost count along the way as he threw himself deep into his own personal training. After losing his family all over again, it was all he could do to put his wandering mind at rest, and to be honest even after cutting down clusters of wild Hollows in frequently traveled roads through the wastes. Caravans were making there way through all the time along these routes, taking goods to small towns, and cities that existed outside of the safeguards of modern society. It was here that things were most dangerous and even more so it was here that Steiner had began his training.

Many years ago, Steiner had entered the Wastelands to hone his skills, and perfect his swordsmanship, but now? Right now Steiner was using the wastes as nothing more than a distraction. There was no training here. What Steiner was doing could barely be considered protection of the weak, it was more closely resembling taking out one's aggression on others, but it had worked so far. The distraction had given him room to breathe and it had also done a few of the supply vehicles he had seen a bit more breathing room as well. They offered him thanks, but he barely acknowledged them, his mind elsewhere. Still, he continued to kill these feral Hollows who hunted the caravans along these routes, and he did it with little to no thought to it.

How many now?

Thirty? Forty?

His breath was ragged in his own throat as he stood over a mound of bodies. How many days had it been since he had started on this, how long had he gone without sleep, and had continued to kill off Hollows to alleviate his emotional state? Covered in Hollow blood, Steiner sat down for the first time in days, and reflected on what he had been doing. The wind of the desert howled around him as he came to terms with his grief and exhaustively picked up his sword before placing it in the sheathe it belonged in. He supposed enough Hollows had been killed to at least allow the caravans to travel safely for a few days before more sprung up. He began to walk down from his pile, stumbling a bit as he looked back at what he had done, and let out a sigh.

He still felt horrible and looking back at the pile of Hollow bodies, he realized that nothing was going to fix that unless he talked about it. Unless he unloaded all of this pent up emotion with a nice long talk, but who could he talk to? He didn't want to bother Ulv with his problems as she always seemed to dislike him talking about his problems and he didn't want her to think of him as nothing more than a whiner. He wanted to prove that he was capable to her and the first thing to do with that was to swallow the bitter pill in the bottom of the bottle and not reach out to her. At least not for now, at least not when he felt like a spring just waiting to bounce out. He had to first accept the bitter pill that they were gone and that more than likely he would never see them again and to be honest? He didn't feel too ready to do that yet. Still, he decided to wander for a while he supposed, maybe find somebody to talk to and work some shit out. After all, healthy communication was important to recovery.

And Steiner needed to recover dearly.