It's two-thirty in the morning when Lydia is woken by the sound of shattering glass. She hesitates to reach for her steel; Whiterun is notorious for drunks in the late night, and she's been woken on more than one occasion by a Battle-Born testing his strength against Breezehome. She fluffs the pillow, readjusts the sheets to blanket her toes, and collapses in exhaustion.

But in the midst of trying to fall back asleep, she hears a bang, followed by her Thane's scream, and the idle housecarl is suddenly springing into action. "My Thane!" her hoarse voice cries; she seizes the grip of her weapon, rips the sheets from her nearly bare body, and blindly stumbles across the hallway. "I'm coming!"

In a very theatrical manner, Lydia thrusts her weight against her Thane's closed door and swings for the nearest figure. "DIE!" she cries mightier than a dragon, projecting her fear and anger upon the figure; she doesn't want to evaluate the room – she doesn't want to witness her failure in little pieces of Dragonborn. Her sword penetrates the intruder's bicep, and as she raises her steel to decapitate it, the thing speaks.

"Hey! Watch it!"

"Lydia! Halt immediately!"

The housecarl recognizes the voices speaking her name; she makes a critical decision to swing her blade into the interior of the home instead. Then, raising her head, she evaluates the duo: her Thane's legs are wrapped around the hips of her husband, and her husband's back is to Lydia, protectively holding his wife with effort to maintain her modesty.

Oh.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Farkas growls. Lydia isn't sure how to react – a moment ago, she thought someone was assassinating her Thane, and now she's realizing her Thane. . .well. . . she hovers her hand over her eyes, but she knows she's harmed Farkas, and she cannot simply run out of the room now! She tries to catch a glimpse of the wound, but when she looks up, all she sees is clenched ass and sweat and –

"Lydia!" her lady is as baffled as she. "I – we – oh Lydia, give us a moment. I'll meet you in the kitchen."

The housecarl leaves the room as commanded. Every limb in her body is trembling and her heart, oh, heart! She's confident it will implode through her mouth at any moment. She sooths her electrified nerves with a tankard filled with mead and settles before the fireplace, unaware of her own battle wound until she peers at her feet, believing the liquor must have spilled between her toes – but it's blood. She props her ankle onto her thigh and realizes that she must have stepped on the vase the couple broke in a moment of their, err. . .passion. She places the tankard beside the chair and begins to pry away the glass when the couple, now dressed in sheets, makes their appearance.

"Oh, Lydia, I'm so sorry. I. . .must have forgotten you were here," the blushing bride says meekly, dwindling her fingers across her chest. She lowers herself onto the chair adjacent to Lydia's. "Your hands are shaking. Let me help you."

"No need to apologize, my Thane," Lydia mumbles. Her hands are trembling, so instead of insisting that she tend the wound herself, she gives her foot to the Dragonborn. "I thought someone was, err. . .trying to murder you."

Her Thane giggles softly. "Not, not exactly. . ."

"Well, if someone was trying to kill my girl, you woulda gotten him," Farkas grunts. Lydia cocks her head to evaluate the damage; he's mopping the blood from his wound with a dry cloth, but there's a trickle that he isn't cleaning.

"There's some on your back. . ." her voice becomes quiet as she realizes the blood was not shed by her sword. The color in her cheeks darkens from crimson to plum. Farkas just laughs.

"Yeah. I got assaulted by two women in the same night. Every man's dream."

"I would have, um,. . .told you earlier, but. . .you know how these things happen. . ."

"Yeah. I was trying to sleep when she started jer –"

"Farkas," her Thane interrupts sharply. She rips the glass from the inside of Lydia's foot applies pressure against the wound with a corner of the sheets she's wearing.

The furry Companion heaves a sigh. "Yes, love."

Lydia scratches the bridge of her nose. "I will be fine, my Thane. I'm going to rest down here for the remainder of the night. You two can. . .go. . .sleep."

"Are you sure?" the other frowns.

The housecarl nods. "Yes. I won't be able to sleep after this, anyway."

The Dragonborn finishes tending to the wound before standing. "We'll keep it down."

"Yeah, right," Farkas snorts, lifting his wife into the air. "Now, where were we. . .?"

Lydia spends the remainder of the morning learning how to differ her Thane's pleasure cries from cries of pain.