When she closed the door after her, Estella sank to the ground, letting go of the composure she had tried so hard to keep. Now that she was safely back in the little cottage, Estella couldn't help herself. She wept, all the tension flowing out of her tear by tear.
Her mother, who had waited fearfully while convincing her father that nothing was amiss, rushed to her, hugging her fiercely.
"What happened? Estella, is everything alright? What did they do to you?" As her daughter looked up to her, her face dirty and wet from her tears, she noticed her lip.
"Oh gods, they didn't... did they...?", she muttered.
"No, mother." Estella got up, regaining her poise. "Everything is fine. I just had a dispute with a soldier over our horse. But the problem is solved. Jaime Lannister..."
"The Kingslayer?!" Horror filled her mother's eyes.
"Yes, but he was not what I thought he would be like. He settled the matter and we may keep the horse."
"Did he do that to your lip?"
"No. No, he wasn't violent at all. It was my doing more or less. It was dark inside of the barn and I banged my head... my lip... it doesn't matter. It's fine. They will leave tomorrow."
Doubtfully, her mother looked at her. "If you say so, love. I just worried. I can't lose you, you know. I couldn't take it..." Now it was her mother's turn to cry, as it had been since she had realized that she had lost her three boys. Estella knew what she meant to her mother, and she regretted being so willful about that horse. Her mother was right, anything could've happened to her if it hadn't been for Jaime Lannister.
She embraced her mother, gave her a kiss on the forehead and decided to let go of the matter. "How is father?", she asked.
"Brooding. As always. He sits in the bed chamber by the fire. He doesn't know that something was amiss."
"Nothing was amiss, mother." Estella smiled. "I'll go and look after him."
When she entered the bedchamber that she shared with her parents, she saw the crooked shape of her father.
"Are the boys back?" His voice was frail, and it broke Estella's heart. He had never been like that until her brothers went to war, fighting for the Tully's. Before all that her father had been an energetic man who took care of his property and his family, a man who loved to laugh and eat and drink the ale he brew for himself. Now everything that was left of him was a shadow of the person that he used to be.
"No, father. It's not a war host." She lied. She didn't even know what the purpose of these soldiers was. All she knew was that they were Lannisters, and that was something she didn't care to tell him. For all she knew it could've been Jaime Lannister who killed one of her brothers, or all of them. Jaime Lannister, the man who had probably saved her life tonight.
"Come here, little one," her father said. All of a sudden, he started to cough violently. One of the fits that he had since the last winter, they came and they went, but she felt like they were growing more and more frequent. And more and more violent.
"It's okay," she said with her most soothing voice, "everything's alright. I'm here, mother is here. We're fine." She reached for a tankard of ale standing beside her father. "Drink this."
He took tiny sips but eventually his shuddering body calmed. He give her the tankard and looked into the fire. After minutes of just sitting there together, he turned his head to face her.
"Nothing is alright, little one. They took our boys from us, they will never return. How could anything be alright ever again?" And once again his body began to shudder. Not from a coughing fit but from the a fit of weeping. Weeping for his sons and everything he had lost due to the men who, unbeknownst to him, camped out on his very own property.