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While the others were preoccupied with Nithel’s sudden reappearance, Brendin felt a sudden calm sweep over him.  He looked down and realized with a start that he was fading, like Nithel and Jericho had.  He wished to say goodbye, but he also didn’t want to interrupt the moment between Mayra and Alessio and Nithel…and he didn’t want to cause the boy more pain.  So he stayed quiet.  The only person to note his passing was Jango, who said nothing.

Bren woke with a start.  He must have dozed by the fire – odd, he didn’t usually sleep much – and he had the strangest dream…something about a castle and a dragon?  And there was a young boy….
It was so bizarre that he had dreamed, he had no idea whether or not it was even real.  After all, maeres didn’t dream…did they?
<p style=”text-align: center;”>~*~</p>
Brendin sighed as he leaned against a wall and massaged his left shoulder.  The golem arm had done a wonderful job replacing his original after Cassius crushed it with a boulder, but it was heavy and put strain on his neck and back sometimes.  He was lucky he was a maere; he might not have coped so well with the loss otherwise.
“You alright there, Bren?” asked Maili, his close friend and the surgeon who’d put him back together more times than he could count.  They’d first become friends when he came to the University as a teen, before Ingor damaged Bren’s memories.  But they’d rebuilt their friendship after when Ada brought Bren’s memories back.
“Sore is all,” Bren answered, smiling.  “Joel and Torf wanted a spar.”
“So that’s why you’ve turned black and blue,” she ribbed lightly.  “How did you and Fyrian do?”
We lost.  Horrendously, Fyrian murmured.
“About as well as expected,” Brendin answered instead.  
By which he means ‘failed completely and utterly’.
“Not well I take it?”
“Not at all.”
Maili was saying something, but for some reason it wasn’t processing.  A wave of dizziness fell over Brendin and he closed his eyes.  Everything was spinning.
This…I remember this… Fyrian whispered.

Brendin stood in a room like a cathedral.  There were others in the room, familiar faces…
The castle.
Memories of a strange dream returned.  Or at least, he’d thought it was a dream.  Evidently it wasn’t.  He knew these people; Alessio, Mayra, Malvat (he reminds me of Cassius), Lupa, Nithel and…Jango?
Jango exchanged a long look with Brendin, assessing.  Then he smiled, and Bren returned it.  “You were here earlier,” Jango said in Kith, “but it was you from years ago.  Before Ingor’s death.”
“I remember.”
Jango made a subtle gesture towards the others crowding around Nithel.  “He’s just done as you have; come back older.  But he doesn’t remember the castle very well,” the bowman explained in Kith.
Brendin remembered his first time in the castle.  He was glad the others hadn’t yet noticed him – or, more accurately, noticed his arm.
The golem arm began at his shoulder, an almost-exact replica of his original arm but made of burnished argil.  It was stronger but less dextrous, and, thanks to Maili’s gifted spellwork, he could feel touch with it.
This is going to be interesting, Fyrian told him.  Brendin agreed.

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[Author’s Note: I’m retconning and decided the Jango in the castle is of the same time period as Bren now is, so they’re on the same page]