[MASSIVE Dark Brotherhood spoilers ahead if you haven't done that questline yet]

So I was playing through the Dark Brotherhood questline. My character's a freakishly good assassin-thief build, good enough that I can literally steal the food off of people's plates as they're eating them or walk right up to someone and and instantly kill them (because even if you're right in front of them, it still counts as a Backstab if they inexplicably don't see you)*.

My character's also an Argonian, and I as a player have a soft spot for Argonians as characters, because there aren't very many games I've played where you can have intelligent lizard people that aren't evil enemies that you just mow down.

So anyway, playing through the Dark Brotherhood questline. As everyone who's played the game knows, everyone except for you, Nazir, and Babette dies at the end of it. Including Veezara, one of the few Argonian characters in the game and the only not-randomly-generated Argonian assassin.

So I was thinking "aw man, I like you, you're one of the better-designed Argonian characters and I want you to live". So I decided to marry him.

The problem being, of course, that Veezara isn't one of the game's marriage candidates.

However, this is something that can fixed with console commands: all Argonian males have the same voice actor, which means that if you were to use console commands to put one of them in a marriage faction, the game will go "oh hey, I have dialogue for this" and list the marriage dialogue while wearing an Amulet of Mara. This is why characters like Jarl Elisif can be married with console commands (she shares lines with existing marriage candidates) while Serana or Teldryn Sero cannot (because both of those characters have entirely unique voices, so the dialogue wasn't recorded for them and the game won't try to pull up the option without outright modding).

ANYWAY, so I do it. First a command to target Veezara, then one to add him to the marriage faction, then one to max out his relationship with my character (because even if a character is marriageable, they have to actually like you enough for the option to show up). And all seems to be going well, we agreed to get married and then I went to Riften to talk to Maramal and set up a ceremony.

My character waits until 9 AM that morning, and I save.

I walk into the Temple of Mara, and all the guests are there (including Gabrielle, another member of the Dark Brotherhood, who actually has recorded dialogue to congratulate you on getting married!!). Veezara's there, too, and Maramal's there to give our oaths.

Except that nothing happens. We're all just standing there like idiots while nothing happens. Veezara doesn't say anything except for the one line "I never thought I'd be lucky enough to get married in the Temple of Mara!", and Maramal just has ordinary dialogue options like nothing is going on.

I briefly remember that there's supposed to be a cutscene when I first walk in (keep in mind, the only character I've ever had that got married was my first, whom I played as literally a year ago, and this character is my 15th), so I leave and re-enter. Nothing.

I reload the save, walk in, and nothing. I leave, wait a few hours, walk in, nothing. Rinse and repeat until I've inexplicably missed my own [censored] wedding ceremony despite actually being there.

I reload again. I walk in, nothing. I wait one hour, talk to everyone, repeat until I miss the ceremony again. Still nothing.

I do research online to see if there was anything I was doing wrong. Nothing.

I strongly consider using console commands to proceed the quest, but before doing so I decided to reload my save one last time.

And I notice something.

A guy named Kust walks out of the Temple of Mara right after I reload my save, every time. I thought he was some guy, maybe the gravekeeper or something (Mara's temple is right above Riften's Hall of the Dead). Having no idea who he was, I decided to talk to him...turns out he's from Thirsk Mead Hall, a location I haven't even discovered yet let alone have done the quest for.

And then he turns around and walks back in.

Aha.

I enter the Temple of Mara and the cutscene finally happens. My beloved Veezara and I exchange our oaths and get our matching Bonds of Matrimony, and he asks me where I want us to live like any normal spouse would. Luckily, before all of this, I did the Thane questline for Riften and bought Honeyside, so I said "yeah, let's live there".

Everything seems to be pretty normal. He runs a store offscreen like any husband in the game and makes me a homecooked meal once a day, combined with his normal Dark Brotherhood dialogue, which means that even as I left to go assassinate the emperor, my husband says "Kill well, and often!", which is just plain cool.

So thinking I've defied the writers, I proceed with the Dark Brotherhood questline, which at that point is the part where you disguise yourself as the Gourmet to kill the Emperor, blah blah blah. Jarrin Root, cooking, and horrific betrayal happens etc etc etc.

I run back to the Sanctuary. It's on fire. Poor Festus Krex is nailed to a tree outside of the entrance by about thirty arrows (bastards didn't even bother using good arrows to kill him, they're Iron ones). The place is crawling with Penitus Oculatus, who are really easy to cut down in this playthrough for some reason (might be related to me being LV38 at this time...maybe they don't level that high). Arnbjorn dies in front of me. I can't find Gabrielle, but I didn't find Veezara's body, either, which makes me a little less nervous about cursing the writing gods. Cutscenes happen blah blah blah blah blaaaaaah.

After I kill Astrid and proceed the plot, I decided to use my favorite console command, moveto player to bring Veezara to my location outside of the ruined Sanctuary.

Nothing.

I try again. Still nothing. He's still targeted, but he's not showing up.

Well [censored]. I use the enable command and THEN use moveto player, and he finally shows up. Clever bastards, the programming removes him from the game at that point in the questline no matter where he is in Skyrim.

Happy ending? Well, ha, NO. Veezara's AI is not meant for marriage or for surviving the Dark Brotherhood questline. Upon being sent back to Mundus by my godly console powers, he just proceeds to walk right back into the ruined sanctuary like nothing has happened. He even starts attacking practice targets that are no longer there (but I guess are actually just made invisible in this version of the level cell), all while talking about how he serves Astrid and this sanctuary, life is good. Which was just plain depressing.

Resigning myself to being a failure, I pulled up the console and disabled him, then ran a series of console commands to unmarry both of us and reset the marriage questline. Well, if I can't marry him, who can I marry?

Wait, I got that Dragonborn Marriage Mod a while back. Like, two weeks ago. In that case...

A few hours later, in Raven Rock, I saved my game, then walked into the Retching Netch Cornerclub while wearing my Amulet of Mara. And sitting there in the corner

was

Teldryn Sero.

Whom I immediately targeted and then maxed out my relationship stat with, and talked to, and the mod actually freaking worked! The ceremony in Riften happened without a hitch, and we moved into Honeyside just fine. The modder even took pains to make sure to replace the hiring dialogue with "Follow me. I need your help." after you've been married to him, alongside all of his wonderful snarky dialogue that they wrote in for him.

Confident about my future plans, I reloaded my save and hired Teldryn, so that we could know each other over time before marrying, with the roleplaying that poor Veezara had totally died in the destruction of the Sanctuary just shortly after being married, and that my character really wanted some extra blades with her to prevent such a catastrophe from ever happening again.

And that is why Teldryn Sero is my follower despite me using an assassin-thief build. The end.

*Still can't sneak up on bears though because bears are omniscient in Skyrim