Segorath

I have tried starting the quest by: Talking to Ellie when arriving on Byzantium. Talking to Ellie about Zora and Sanjar on another world and segueing to her quest. Taking Ellie to Fenhill Estate to meet her parents with no prior dialogue. Enabling console commands and beginning the quest manually. All resulted in immediate failure. I was able to continue and complete the quest but the "botched" status did not change, I got no XP, and Ellie did not get her perk.