Yeah, actually now I think of it, I did steal it; I think from the Hlaalu stronghold. His comment of 'now I have the ebony longsword' I still find quite weird though. As if that particular longsword was special... can't really imagine if I'd tried to sell him a potion I stole he would have said 'now I have the spoiled potion of slowfall!'
I'm not one to steal actually, Johnny! Seems like a lot of saving and loading to bother with when you're not great at it early. Plus my character isn't one for illegal activities. She doesn't go in tombs either (unless absolutely necessary

).
In other sad news, my shock centurion, Sparky, that Baladas gave me died this morning. One too many pecks from a swarm of evil cliff racers. I was quite cool on him to start; actually he got stuck coming down to the silt strider in Gnisis (so he managed to make it about 10m on our first attempt an questing together

), but then I recently almsivied into Gnisis and there he was, so I said hi and went down to the silt strider, I arrived in Ald'ruhn and much to my surprise, there he was! It was quite cool wandering about with a friend instead of all alone, very sad to see him go