Fan favourite deserves to direct Game of Thrones finale.

On Sunday’s episode of Game of Thrones, titled Stormborn, we saw the first big reunion of the season: Arya (Maisie Williams) and her beloved (and long-forgotten) direwolf Nymeria.

We haven’t seen Nymeria since way back in the first season, when Arya drove her away in an effort to protect her. And as we know, direwolves have very deep ties to the lives of the Stark children, that mirror the trajectory of their individual journeys.

But up until recently, the show has largely neglected to keep tabs on the remaining wolves except when the budget allows — with Ghost popping up here and there whenever Jon Snow is in need of rescuing, leaving the only other living Stark wolf, Nymeria, entirely absent until now.

In the scene, Arya has decided to finally return to Winterfell now that she knows Jon has been named King of the North. But as she plots her path in the frozen woods, a pack of wolves suddenly surrounds her, headed by a massive, fierce Nymeria.

Their interaction is brief. Arya tells her of her plans to return home and have Nymeria join her, but the wolf only snarls in response. “That’s not you,” Arya says, with what almost appears to be an understanding smile.

While it sounds like she could just be rejecting the idea that the wolf in front of her is Nymeria, the moment doubles as a throwback to the first season and a touching scene between Arya and Sean Bean’s Ned Stark. In it, her father tells her she will one day grow up and get married and grow her own family, but Arya replies, “No. That’s not me.”

In the after-the-episode behind-the-scenes interview, creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss explained that Arya “wants to come back home with her and be her loyal companion again. But Nymeria’s found her own life.”

Weiss added, “‘That’s not you’ is a direct reference to what Arya herself said to her father when her father painted this picture for her as a lady of a castle, and marrying some lord and wearing some frilly dress. Arya’s not domesticated, and it makes total sense her wolf wouldn’t be, either. Once the wolf walks away, at first she’s heartbroken to have come this close. Then she realizes the wolf is doing exactly what she would do if she were that wolf.”

In the books, the Starks are even more psychically tied to their direwolves — though only Bran ever seemed to have such a connection in the series. In George R.R. Martin’s world, Arya has visions in which she is Nymeria. There are even rumours of a giant wolf-pack roaming the Riverlands that sounds an awful lot like the one we saw in “Stormborn” on Sunday.

It certainly suggests another appearance from Nymeria may not be too far off, particularly as Arya makes her way to Winterfell. It wouldn’t be entirely shocking to see a wolf-pack uprising when we least expect it.

As Arya said herself last week, “the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.”