(( This is being copied over from the old Grim site so that I can link it in my bio. Feel free to comment, but the story is long past. ))
Yichimet had spent days in the dark woods, waking, dreaming, running, and falling asleep to wake and repeat it all again. He had to run from groups of Kaldorei who hunted him. In his right mind, he would have tried to tear them apart. Now he saw them as beings of power so immense that they could flay him with their small finger.
He woke in Darkshore and shivered and looked around, scratching at his ghost hide with a nearly invisible paw. And, almost as soon as he woke, he heard a familiar voice calling to his spirit. He whimpered and called back with the only thing left him: his emotions. He was alone and scared and sick, and tried to send those feelings to the voice in his head.
It did not take long for Ceryna to find him. Yichimet was running again from a lone long-ear when he stumbled into the feet of her felsteed on the road. He knew this was a friend, so he lay at her feet while she comforted him and asked him to lead her. He barely recognized the words. He had been away from speech for some time now. The only place he knew to take her was the place where he felt most ill, and so he lead her to the sword that pierced the land.
Strange creatures wandered in front of him, fatlings and dead men and others. They chanted and waved their staves. Ceryna kept speaking, but he didn't understand, and at times he didn't recognize her. Her profile shimmered: now, grey and rotting flesh, now soft and pink and fully human.
Out of instinct Yichimet shifted his spirit back to his Shu'halo body. "I do not know where I am," he said. "I do not know who I am."
"I know where you are. I know who you are," Ceryna said. Her eyes were wells of concern.
Yichimet stepped back. "I don't recognize you!" he cried. And just as suddenly he knew her. "Ceryna," he pleaded. "I need to go home. I need Hidua."
"Lead me, Yichimet. I will keep you safe."
Dropping in and out of his mind, Yichimet raced as a wolf before Ceryna through the trees of Kalimdor. One moment he was whimpering at the silhouette of a stag on the horizon, the next he was throwing the earth's power at Kaldorei who ambushed them on the path.
His legs almost gave out near Splintertree Post, and Ceryna lead him to the Inn in the small military base.
"What has made you so broken, brother?" Ceryna mumbled almost to herself. Yichimet's eyes darted about, seeing things that were not present: Fire, Fruit, Demons, Dead.
He woke briefly with Mohan and Ohoye and Ceryna in front of where he lay on a cot in the corner. "Mohan. Hidua..." he managed to get out before he slipped into the fever again.
The fever kept him. He came to at Freewind Post, and almost sobbed at the sight of the totems Burning with the demon fire. Sehkar and Nissi and Grainger were there too. An orc huntress stood there as well, one whom he'd heard stories about, one whose presence convinced him he was dreaming.
He woke again next to Snowfeather, who purred at his ghost wolf form that huddled against her cat's flank. He heard the name Hidua spoken again and again, but could not find the old Sorcerer when he looked around.
He woke one last time, on the verge of collapse, and stumbled into the tent that served as an inn. Snowfeather hummed lullabies in his ear. Mohan and Ohoye stood watch with Ceryna. Others were in and out of the tent. He passed from consciousness.
His spirit was trying to move from his body to be among his ancestors.