AN: Due to the success in 1st person style of writing in the 1st chapter I'm going to try and continue it. For any that had a problem with any grammatical errors in the previous chapter, I have someone to proof read it so that this will hopefully not happen again.

Also in case I forgot to mention it in the last chapter Arya and Harry/Rickard are the same age.

Chapter 2

Companionship and Desperation

It had been a week since we arrived at our new home. Cat had tried to put her foot down and place my brothers, sister, and myself in kennels but after the fifth time I escaped and freed them she got the clue that we weren't going to be separated from our new companions. Remembering the first night and that morning still brought a wag to my tail.

*Flashback Begin*

I crept through the castle sniffing around for Arya. Cat had just placed me in the kennel, but actually being able to see the lock on the outside made it exceedingly easy for me to escape.

Soon I caught a fresh scent from Arya and followed it back to the room. Unfortunately the door was closed, so I was forced to pause as I pondered what to do next. Looking at the handle it appeared to be a simple leaver rather than the door knobs they had back in privet drive, the problem was it was too high.

Looking around to see if anyone was approaching, seeing the coast was clear I backed up and made a running dash for the lever only to miss and bang my head into the door. Landing on the ground with tail tucked underneath I placed my paws over my head in an attempt to stop it from hurting, an involuntary whimper may have left me, but I fervently deny that I made any other sound.

Next thing I knew Arya had opened up the door and looked around. She saw me on the ground holding my head. "Rickard!? What are you doing out here?" Arya exclaimed. Noticing that my paws were still holding my head she put two and two together to figure out I must have run into the door with my head.

"Oh, you poor thing." Arya said softly as she leaned down and scooped me up in her arms. "Did you want to sleep in my room?" She cooed at me.

Another whimper escaped from me as I nodded my head in acquiescence. She nodded "Ok, but we can't be caught or mother will get angry and make me do extra lessons." I moved my head up to her face and gave her a lick before nuzzling her cheek.

Arya giggled before quickly closing the door and running back to bed where she placed me on a pillow. She lay down and I quickly made my way over closer to her so she could circle her arms around me and hold me like a teddy bear I'd seen Dudley sleeping with.

Next thing I knew I was awakened to a shriek as Cat came in to wake Arya only to find me in bed with her. Arya shot up looking around for what had made the noise, while I tried to quickly hide underneath the sheets so as not to be noticed.

"Arya, I thought I told you they were to stay in their kennels during the night." Cat stated angrily.

"I didn't go and get him mother; he showed up at my door trying to get in." Arya tried to explain.

I peeked my head over the sheets giving a quick nod before diving back under the sheets so that the angry eyes weren't directed at me.

I must have surprised her because there was a pregnant pause before I heard her mutter to herself, "That wolf is way too intelligent."

"Arya get dressed and head down for breakfast, you have reading with Maester Luwin first. Then after lunch you have sewing with Murdane." Cat said as she left the room. "Rickard can stay with you as long as he doesn't make a mess in the house. Maybe have him try and convince his siblings to do the same, one of the maids already found a treasure left by Shaggydog in Rikon's room."

Arya made a face when she heard about the lessons, but couldn't help the smile that formed when I stood up wagging my tail feverishly at not being separated from her again. We both crinkled our noses when she mentioned the surprise.

Arya turned to me with a very serious expression saying, "I had better not be finding any such surprises anywhere in my room or no more cuddling." I nodded so fast I had to put my paws to my head to stop the world from rattling, causing her and Cat to laugh before Cat left.

*Flashback End*

After that I quickly made my siblings understand not to leave anymore presents in the castle. Once the message got across I helped free them when I made my nightly breakout. No matter how Lady Cat tried to fashion it, a kennel that couldn't hold me. Eventually she just gave up and gave me the stink eye before sighing and scratching my ears. "Just continue to make sure she goes to most of her lessons for me, will you?" I nodded in acceptance.

# # # # # #

Currently we were sneaking away from another sewing lesson. I had her quiver in my mouth while she carried her bow. We were heading outside of the castle to practice archery again.

So far the only lesson we didn't try to skip were the reading lessons, which I always sat on the bench with my head just making it past the top of the table so I could try and read with her. The one time she tried to skip it I ended up grabbing the hem of her dress in my mouth and dragging her to the lesson, much to her dismay and Maester Luwin's amusement.

Once we had gotten out of the castle she started heading off in a random direction before I tugged on her dress. She looked down at me questioningly before I nodded my head in a specific direction and then began walking a little ways away before she got the message to follow.

After 5 minutes of walking we came to a clearing that was almost completely blocked from view from the outside, but was wide open inside, with a 50 yard diameter.

On one side of the clearing was a tightly wound roll of hay that was used for target practice. Arya looked down at me with awe. "How in the seven hells did you manage to get that here without anyone noticing?" She asked as she bent down and scratched my ears. I gave as much of a shrug as I could before giving her a lick on the cheek.

The truth was while she was sleeping last night I had snuck out of the room and stuck to the shadows until I got to the practice yard. The targets were supposed to be changed tomorrow so the new ones were sitting on the ground. Slowly and carefully I had put all my strength into moving it out of the castle. It had taken me a full hour to get it there and make sure no one noticed me. After laying down in exhaustion for a few moments I unsteadily got back to my feet and quickly made it back to the room so that she wouldn't notice that I had been missing.

"Thank you very much," Arya said, "I'll scoop a bigger piece of meat onto the floor for you." That was another of the quirks that Arya had noticed about me. Being a wolf I could stomach quite easily eating raw meat like my siblings but still preferred to eat it cooked, and had stolen a lot of her food before she got the hint that I wanted what she was having.

I nodded my head and sat back to watch her have fun with the bow. Once she would go through the whole quiver we would race each other to the target and see who could collect the most arrows. I was faster than her, but lacking thumbs made it hard to grip the arrows without them snapping so I had to be gentle about it. Somehow she always seemed to collect one more than me which only heated up the competition even more.

# # # # # #

We had been together for three months now and had settled into the routine of spending all our time together, whether it be reading or trying to escape the more girly lessons. Although I made sure that we showed up to enough of them that we didn't get into too much trouble. Our little clearing still hadn't been discovered which we were both grateful. After the first month I decided to try and be able to communicate with Arya more so one day I decided to use one of my claws and tried to scratch out a message about doing something different.

Arya had been shocked and had wanted to show everyone else but I shook my head and stared into her eyes pleadingly before she finally agreed. After that I only ever wrote to her when we were alone and we began formulating plans on what to do. For some reason that I cannot fathom a good portion of them ended up being pranks on Sansa, hehe.

But today was the big day; the King of the seven kingdoms was coming to Winterfell to make Lord Stark his hand. I had been extremely confused and for some reason had the idea of some giant coming and grabbing Lord Stark and tying him to his arm stump to act as his hand. Thankfully Arya explained it to me before I embarrassed myself by writing out this question.

Unfortunately my siblings and I had to hide from the guests during the procession because they were trying to make a good impression. I just huffed and decided to go wander in the forest when Arya had explained this to me.

# # # # # #

The guests had been here for a couple of days which I was grateful for, because it meant that we hadn't had to go to lessons and could spend our time having fun. Unfortunately Arya had been called away by Cat to pack, apparently we were going to be heading to the south to a place called Kings Landing. So I was left to wander around on my own. As I did I caught the scent of Summer and Bran, so I headed in that direction. As I arrived I saw Bran at the top of the tower and a hand holding him in place, Summer was whimpering in worry.

All of a sudden the hand withdrew and I saw Bran relax a little of his hold on the wall. Then the hand was back and it shoved Bran out the window, hurtling him to towards the ground.

"NOOOOO!" I screamed in my mind, and as I did something inside shattered.

AN: There's the cliffhanger for you, hope you all are still enjoying the story and keep reviewing.