#you activated my trap card: deep desire to blather

[fatherentropy]

So what if all of Laury's Allies and people he considers his friends Fucking Died in the battle against Alduin? He would feel soooo bad.

Oh but my friend!! That premise is the precise reason why he realistically doesn't have any close companions (of his own accord).

Imagine a little noodle of a 7'1" lizard boy who's never known true affection in his life. Like he knows what it is, he's just been told he is Unworthy of it because he's a useless and stupid sack of shit. But then he escapes his shitty situation and gets told by people that he's got a good arm and potential and when he does things for folks they sometimes react with gratitude and not with spiteful venom. Maybe, maaaybe he can be worthy of it?

But Tamriel isn't a place for do-gooders and people get hurt or die no matter what you do. There's these roles that people want him to fill as a hero of legend but surely it can't be him. It doesn't matter that he's trained to become the pinnacle of a warrior and healer, a monolith of a man with no equal. There is Something Wrong With Him. Legends, Prophecies and Visions hung around his neck like a noose by people he needed to look up to but can no longer because all teachers burn before him to make room for his legacy he did not ask for. Even his peers start looking up to him with expectation and need that he can't fulfill. Fading from friends to a distant murmur of future disappointment and heartbreak until the only people he's even remotely close to is Serana and Paarthurnax. Both of which with journeys that will bring them out of his life and him who will not reach out for them because he is simply incapable of doing that.

Laury is a myth and a legend but never the terrified young man he actually is and he struggles onward, uniquely alone on top the pedestal.

It's Yorick, my Vestige, that gathers Laury's would-be companions while pretending to be the Dragonborn with a borrowed dragon soul from BadEnd!Laury and drags them through the Alduin and Dawnguard campaigns so they're effectively there though Laury won't remember them, forcefully drawing lines between them. And then acts as the villain in Miraak's place to unify them into a group that should keep Laury safe from his self destructive proclivity toward isolation.

(aka, I hit Farkas with my 2-hander one time because I can't aim and felt so bad I never willingly traveled with followers again until playing around with CVFs and Yorick and I just baked that into his lore. For Fun!)