Shett went to Whiterun to do a little bit of the main quest so I could get random dragons spawning. Then I went to Riften to get into the Thieves Guild. Along the way there are a couple of dungeon crawls and random over-world encounters, and Lydia sees me through them. She's been more helpful than I thought because she'll sneak with me, let me snipe stuff, and then jump in to brawl with things once they get close. So I take her out to a place south of Riften where there is a dragon and word wall. We get to the top and it's Shett's first solo dragon fight. Shett was only level 7 so it was pretty intense, and of course Lydia hasn't figured out to get behind the pillar so she gets to one knee. I get the dragon almost all the way dead when I draw back my bow to finish it off. As I'm aiming, it breathes fire in my face and I almost die, so I let the arrow go. I managed to miss, so I quickly reloaded and finished it off. I run up to where the dragon was to find Lydia's corpse laying there, dead by my arrow fired into the face of dragon breath. I sat there for a minute or two just staring at the body, wondering what to do. I finally shrugged and figured "dead is dead", so I looted her gear and left her corpse there.
Only problem is, now I've gotten a little further and realize that I kind of regret killing Lydia, even if it was in the heat of combat. Perhaps it will just be something I can just get stupid drunk over, and talk about how no one else will ever take her place.
Anyone else have a tragedy like this and didn't reload?