A/N: All places and characters belong to Bethesda Softworks. No profit is being made from this work. This is currently just a one-shot but I may add further stories of other Dovahkiin and their companions as the mood strikes me. Enjoy.
The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and to Arnheim, Thane of Whiterun and dragon-slayer, even if he wasn't entirely convinced about the whole Dragonborn thing, both were a greater burden than all the dragon bones, iron ore, potions, bearskins and assorted weapons that were actually burdening his loyal housecarl, Lydia. She marched three steps behind him as he doggedly walked on to Rorikstead. They travelled in silence, hers disapproving while he was simply mute with suffering.
Aside from the pounding headache, this was nothing new. Sixth son of a miller and lacking a great deal of direction in his life, Arnheim had been called a fool more often than he'd been called a hero, and Lydia clearly sensed it. She'd served him uncomplainingly and unhesitatingly and in a manner that made him feel entirely unworthy of her.
He'd hoped she'd grow to like him, even a little bit. Given how the day had started, this eventuality was as remote as the moons in the sky.
It was with great relief that he saw the little hamlet that was their destination ahead of them, and he actually managed to pick up the pace a bit.
He stumbled into town, and went to ask directions from the nearest farmhand. He'd barely opened his mouth when the man bellowed at him.
"You! You've got a lot of nerve showing yourself in this town again!"
"Oh, this isn't good," Arnheim muttered.
"What do you have to say for yourself?"
Lydia pressed her lips together to prevent herself from smiling as the farmer berated her Thane; Arnhein saw her. Of all the things to find funny, he thought.
"Could you please stop shouting?" Arnhein offered.
"No!" Was the response, even louder than the first and Arnheim flinched. "You're not even sorry. My Gleda is still out there, alone and afraid, and you kidnapped her and sold her to that giant."
Arnheim's mouth went dry, "I...I did what? I don't remember, I swear." Maybe Lydia's opinion of him was the right one after all.
"I'll never breed another prize winning goat like Gleda again."
"A goat?" He blinked. "Oh, thank the Divines. I thought I'd done something terrible."
"You have done something terrible!"
"Please stop shouting!" the hungover Nord hollered back and then instantly regretted it and lowered his voice again. "Look, did I say anything about a staff? Or where I'd been?"
"You might have mentioned something. I'll tell you when you get my goat back."
Arnheim just looked at him, red-eyed and still stinking of whatever he'd poured down his neck in such great quantities the night before. He smiled easily most of the time, but right now he looked more like a bear woken prematurely from hibernation.
"Are you sure you can't remember?" he growled.
"Don't hurt me! All right, you said was that you had to repay Ysolda in Whiterun, something about a wedding ring."
"Ysolda? Ysolda thinks I'm getting married? Maybe I did get married." He stared at his own hands in sudden horror, but he wasn't wearing a ring. "This is awful. My sweet Ysolda, I haven't even found her a mammoth tusk yet."
That had been an eventful hunting expedition, and it had led to him and Lydia legging it over half of Skyrim and hiding in a cave until the arrow-peppered mammoths had gotten bored and gone home again. And now he might have irrevocably screwed things up with the beautiful merchant. As if this hangover wasn't bad enough.
The farmer was still cowering and Arnhein hung his head, "I'll go and find your goat," he said. "It's the least I can do to make amends."
Lydia sighed, adjusted the pack on her back slightly, and trudged up the hill after him.
It wasn't a glorious battle. Arnhein did his best to reason with the giant as he pursued him and the goat, but the creature wouldn't listen to reason and the warrior had to reach for his sword. The giant advanced on him and smacked him hard enough with his club to send him careening down the hill.
"FUS! RO-ow my head." There didn't seem to be a way to use dragonspeech quietly.
"He-yah!" Lydia darted in and neatly severed the tendons on the back of the giant's leg, and the battle continued until the great creature fell. Arnhein felt rather bad about it.
The goat nuzzled Arnhein's hip as he removed the giant's toes – waste not want not, and it would be a shame to let the wolves get them. Still, it looked particularly nauseating this morning, the glistening bone and raw meat.
"Urg," Arnhein groaned. "Carry this would you?" He held it out to Lydia.
She sighed and took the object, "I'm sworn to carry your burdens."
"Is that all you can say, really?" He looked at her from under his untidy mop of blonde hair. "I'm having the worst day of my life, well, except for the day they nearly executed me, and you just sigh at me. If your oath is such a burden, you have my permission to lay it down and go home."
Lydia considered this for a few moments, and set her jaw. "Do I have permission to speak freely as well?"
"You can do whatever the hell you want."
"May I point out that this 'worst day of your life' is entirely your own fault? Every time I was about to go to sleep your drunken ass would drag me out to some other wretched inn in the middle of nowhere." She frowned, "I don't even remember you selling a goat. I can only hope I slept through the wedding, if indeed there was one." She rubbed her eyes, "It feels like that bender went on for weeks. I'd wake up and we'd be somewhere else, or on the back of a cart-" She shook her head. "It doesn't matter. You got yourself into this mess, and you can get yourself out. Don't worry about all this junk, I'll drop it at your house."
And with that she turned and marched off, leaving Arnhein trying to get the goat to stop nibbling at his gloves.
It took him almost the rest of the day to walk back to Whiterun. Mostly because he kept stopping to work out what he was going to say to Ysolda. Unfortunately it was a bit hard to make excuses when one wasn't sure what one had done wrong to start with. He'd bought a wedding ring. How could he? Maybe she'd not want to speak to him at all.
"I'll never drink again," he swore, for the fourteenth time since he'd woken up in the Markath temple.
The shadows were long when he approached the Whiterun stables. Maybe he'd get an early night and worry about Ysolda the next morning.
When he got closer he realised a figure was leaning against the stable wall, arms folded, waiting for him.
Lydia.
He walked up and stopped.
"You don't smell as bad as you did this morning," Lydia said.
"I had a bath," he said. "In a stream. Since you weren't there to be embarrassed."
Lydia snorted. "I'm not the one likely to be embarrassed." She unfolded her arms and tossed something at him, it arced high in the air, glinting in the sun for a moment before he caught it. A gold ring. A wedding ring.
Arnheim raised his eyebrows.
Lydia shrugged. "I talked to Ysolda and found out where the wedding was supposed to be and then I went and got the ring back for you. You owe me the price of a horse, by the way. I think I'll call her Gleda."
"Wait, so, who had the ring?"
Lydia regarded him steadily, "Trust me on this, you really don't want to know."
He nodded, maybe some things were better left forgotten. "You talked to Ysolda?" Arnhein asked uncertainly.
Lydia let him suffer for a few moments longer.
"I spun her a story of misunderstandings and misguided love and I left her misty-eyed and positively aching to mend your poor broken heart."
He gaped for a few moments, and then a slow smile stole across Arnhein's face. "You're a woman of many talents. I didn't know you cared," he teased gently.
"I didn't know either. But, you didn't set out to hurt anyone, and I know you're going to walk the length of Skyrim putting things right one way or another. That's something to be lauded; not many would do the same. And to be honest, I should have stayed awake and stopped you from making such a fool of yourself. You weren't much of a Thane, but I wasn't much of a housecarl either."
"So, friends?" He offered her his hand.
She shook it. "Yes, my Thane. What are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to find Ysolda and give her back this ring," he said. "And then we're going to find Sam Guevenne and his staff, and we're going to break it over his head."
Lydia laughed. "I approve."
Arnhein had never heard her laugh before.