I honestly found the best companion to be Aela the Huntress.
She keeps her distance in combat, will train your bow to 75 IIRC (which you can promptly ask for your money back). Just gotta marry her.
As for a quest reset in Dawnstar. I do not know. These games can be buggy at times, and quests can mess up. I had some not complete before. Or I complete them and their waypoints are still on my map and journal.
Revert to old save perhaps?
You do save often? TES since Morrowind have been buggy. The more open ended a game is, the more exploits and bugs that exist, and only so many could be found by playtesters when you can easily soak 200 plus hours into one playthrough.
Yes I cat-assed it!