Ah, a thread after my own heart :) This happened to me the other day. On a quest to remove a dangerous animal from a house in Shor's Stone (seriously, how do they get in there...?!) I met Sylgja, who my character took an instant liking to. I cleared the spiders out of her local mine, then took some letters to her parents and back. I started toying with the idea of having my character marry this lass. The next couple of times I was adventuring in the area, I dropped by to say hi. Then, one day as I was passing Shor's Stone, Sylgja wasn't by the smelter. "She's probably in the mine," I thought, and headed in there... To a scene of horror. The spiders were back, much bigger this time, and they were attacking the miners, who fought back with admirable (though foolhardy) bravery. I grabbed my bow and started to snipe the foul beasts, and as the miners fell one by one, I thought "Where is she? Where is she?" Then I saw her, running across the mine to take on the last surviving spider, which I had nearly killed, but which had ducked out of my line of sight just before I could administer the final arrow. I jumped off the bridge down to the path below and shot the beast... Just too late to save her from its killing blow. Now everything in the mine was dead but for me. Slightly numbed, I stood over her body for a few seconds, actually grieving. Grieving for a little AI script in a frivolous video game. Then I thought "Wow. This game made me feel this." and stood there for a few more seconds marvelling at that. Then I looted her corpse. It's Skyrim, after all.