Slowly, Ollie clawed his way back from the edge of the void, anchoring himself against its sweet, seductive song as his feet sank deeper into the soft, silty streambed. The cold helped. The cold was real. The earth beneath his feet was real. The cold, icy water flowing around his waist was real and proof that he was still alive, and as long as he was alive, he could fight against the call of the void and the death that threatened to consume him and Lady Cerys both.
Once he'd pulled himself back from the edge, he started to confront the pain that threatened to overwhelm him. All at once, it was too much. He needed to sift through the pain, like sifting through shards of glass with bare hands, in order to find a piece he could deal with. If he could remove just one source of pain, it would get easier, and then he could confront the next and the next…
