NOTE: This is an older fic that I wrote for someone around two years ago. Parts of this story have been edited to add more context to the story itself.
Arya ran with Nymeria through the frozen Riverlands, pushing through the snow as her lower legs ached with the sheer force and speed which she ran, her now fully grown direwolf, Nymeria, pushing through the snow next to her.
All throughout her time growing up in Winterfell, Arya had been brought up on legends of the Long Night and Azor Ahai and the Others. Back then, all had been fun and games in the eyes of young Arya Underfoot, and all of these stories of old had been laughed off as myths by the masses of the Seven Kingdoms.
All of the laughing and lack of belief stopped when the Wall fell.
After Arya returned from Braavos with Ser Justin and Jeyne Poole and then finding Nymeria, she and Nymeria had been separated from the two of them when scores of northerners began to flee south when word had been spread that the Wall had fallen and that the Others were invading Westeros with an army of the undead at their command. Arya and Nymeria had been swept up in the crowd and went south along with them.
Upon reaching the deeper parts of the Riverlands, Arya and Nymeria had both been separated from any masses of people running for their lives, and soon after that, darkness fell over the whole of Westeros. Not long after, she had encountered wights in a village that by then had been ransacked by raiders or scavengers or other wights or by whatever else had come their way.
They had run then and barely escaped. From that time, Arya and Nymeria had run away from the wights all throughout the Riverlands, desperate to keep themselves from joining the army of the dead that was seemingly everywhere. What horrified Arya in particular was the fact that the Others did not just add more ranks to their army of the dead from those they killed–Arya and Nymeria often found whole lichyards with every grave opened. Arya suspected that somewhere in Westeros, the Kings of Winter and others walked again as they had thousands of years ago.
During that time, they had both come upon bands of smallfolk that had given them as much food as they could share and temporary shelter, but they were now on their own, both trudging through the piles of snow throughout the southron wilderness. Soon enough, they broke through the line of trees and found themselves in a clearing at the shore of a lake. Arya knew this lake; she was able to tell where she and Nymeria were on account of Harrenhal's large, black towers looming over them both.
The familiar sight of Harrenhal and the God's Eye lake carried with them so many terrible memories for Arya, and she hated to be near them both. Upon realizing that she could easily have been spotted out there, she drew Needle from its sheath and urged Nymeria to stay close to her as she made her way north around the large lake before them both.
More memories came flooding back to Arya as she reached the northern end of the lake with Nymeria. She thought about the horrors she'd witnessed within Harrenhal's walls and the sense of terrified urgency she'd felt while she fled from that horrid place on stolen horses with Gendry and Hot Pie. Though she had her suspicions about Harrenhal now being abandoned due to everything that'd happened and was currently taking place, she still decided to avoid entering.
Something wrong with your leg, boy?
The sentence flickered through her mind as she kept walking with Nymeria. Being near Harrenhal made Arya remember what had happened to her friend, the late Lommy Greenhands. Sure, Raff the Sweetling was now dead by Arya's hand and rotting in a canal in Braavos, but the memory was still present in her mind as fresh as the day it happened. She and Gendry and Hot Pie had been taken to Harrenhal while Weasel had run for her life. Arya hoped she was alive and safe somewhere, but she didn't hold her breath.
"Come on, Nymeria," Arya said, putting Needle back into its sheath as she began walking into the northern wilderness to get away from Harrenhal. Nymeria obliged and continued to faithfully walk by Arya's side. However, after about four minutes of moving north and then east, back towards the spot where she and Gendry and Hot Pie had been captured by the Mountain's Men, Arya drew Needle again when Nymeria immediately tensed up and began to growl loudly, facing the wilderness before them, evidently detecting some sort of danger ahead.
"Shh!" Arya said, successfully quieting Nymeria down in case someone dangerous (or even worse–a wight or even an Other) was ahead and had heard the growl. After Nymeria quieted down, Arya slowly progressed forward, taking note of a dirt road further up ahead. As she walked, Lommy's response to Raff before he was stabbed in the throat echoed in her mind.
It got hurt.
Around that time, she had also noticed something else: a softer growl, a growl which sounded similar to the guttural growls made by wights. However, it seemed as if there was only one in the surrounding area rather than a whole mass of them like usual. Arya carefully moved forward, then saw the sole skeletal wight Nymeria had detected as the two of them progressed. At first, Arya had thought that it had fallen and was trying to pick itself back up, but she then saw that it was crawling rather than walking.
She then realized why it was crawling and at the same time immediately recognized the identity of the wight because of the fact that he was missing the lower half of the bone making up his left calf.
Lommy, Arya realized as the wight turned to look up at her as it continued crawling.
It was horrible for Arya to see the undead form of her friend Lommy Greenhands crawling around like it was. When Lommy's undead form seemed to take notice of her and Nymeria, it turned and began to crawl towards her atop the snowy ground as fast as it could possibly crawl with its destroyed leg.
Arya was too gripped by her current horrified and distraught state of mind upon seeing him to move, so she didn't quiet down Nymeria when she started growling and tensing up again. Finally, she snapped back into reality as she realized that this was no longer her old friend, but rather something nonhuman. Therefore, she did not stop Nymeria as she darted forward and began tearing into the wight before them both.
Soon enough, Lommy died for the second time. As Arya and Nymeria continued onward after Nymeria had finished him off, she reminded herself to stay vigilant in case other wights were in the nearby area. At the same time, she was trying to prevent herself from collapsing out of grief.