Arya’s best friend *might* be coming back to “Game of Thrones”

This season on Game of Thrones, we might see Arya reunite with her long lost BFF — but we’re trying not to get our hopes up. The end of season six saw Arya flee Braavos and *finally* head back to Westeros — and hopefully reunite with her remaining siblings. While we’ve only seen a few glimpses of the youngest Stark daughter in trailers for the upcoming season, it’s clear that Arya is somewhere in the Riverlands — following her brutal revenge on Walder Frey and his sons.

As Time recently pointed out, if you’re a reader of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, you’ll know that a character *very* close to Arya is also in the Riverlands: her direwolf, Nymeria.

In the books, following the Red Wedding, Nymeria pulls Catelyn Stark’s body out of a river, leading to the Stark matriarch’s resurrection as Lady Stoneheart. Now, it’s become increasingly unlikely that GoT is going to be following through with the Lady Stoneheart BUT maybe — just maybe — Arya and Nymeria could reunite during this upcoming season!

If you remember, Arya and Nymeria have been separated since season one, after Arya sent her away to avoid being killed by the Lannisters. Since then, we’ve heard nothing more of the direwolf. Assuming she’s still alive, she’s the only other living Stark direwolf — along with Jon’s wolf, Ghost — remaining. We already know that wolves were spotted on set in Belfast and they did *not* match Ghost’s description so we’re all but convinced Nymeria will reappear this season.

While we’re trying not to read too much into things, it certainly looks like there are some *amazing* Stark reunions in store for us this season. It looks like Bran and Arya are each on their way back to Winterfell, which Jon and Sansa restored at the end of last season. Furthermore, based on the photos released by HBO, it seems that Arya has reunited with her sword Needle, which was thought to be lost in Braavos.

For all we know, we’re walking into our own Red Wedding but we’re keeping our fingers crossed with we finally get to see some Stark reunions when Game of Thrones returns on July 16th!