Singing Skyrim’s “my companion left me” blues

I want to trade some items with you, I tell Lydia by selecting that choice from the menu. Which is oddly placed several entries down. What a terrible place for my most common interaction with Lydia, who routinely helps me out with my inventory overflow. I don’t want to call her a mule, because she’s also a tank.

“I live to share you burden,” she says. Although you’d think a housecarl would be more professional, the actresses’ line reading sounds as if the director wrote the word “sarcastic” in big red letters on the script.

“Look, I just need you to carry these dragon bones for a while. Just until we get to the next MISC merchant, where I’ll sell them first thing. I promise.”

So when I apply a frost damage enchantment to a dwarven greatsword we found in some ruins, I name it “Lydia’s Icy Retort”. I want to trade some items with you, I tell her.

“I live to share your burden.”

I give her the newly enchanted sword. It’s pretty cool to see her swinging that big thing around. It’s not so cool that she looks so stupid in that helmet I gave her. But better safe than dignified, I always say. Thousands of years in the future, this same thinking will cause people to wear similarly ridiculous helmets when they ride bicycles.

Unfortunately, Lydia apparently doesn’t live to share my burden. I told her to wait while I ran ahead in a dungeon to test a scroll that causes area damage. When I went back, she was gone. She had taken the sword, about a dozen dragon bones, and various and sundry heavy goods that I didn’t want to carry, being that I’m a willowy mage type.

I miss Lydia’s icy retort. Both of them. After doing some research on the Skyrim wiki, I discovered that sometimes when Lydia leaves, you can find her at Breezehome, the player housing available for purchase in Whiterun. Pictured. So I purchased Breezehome and now I’m loitering in this unfurnished dusty house, waiting, sleeping a few hours at a time, flipping through the remodeling catalog, imagining the sort of home we could share, hoping she’ll come through that door.