Morndas, 18th of Last Seed, 4E 201
Yngve woke just before midday, and was momentarily startled to find himself in a strange room with a strange woman, before the previous day's events caught back up with him. He had missed breakfast, Lydia informed him upon seeing that he was awake, but he should have time to dress and join the great hall for lunch. She gestured to a set of clothing, neatly laid out over the back of a chair, and dutifully turned away toward the door for his privacy. Stylistically, Yngve felt that they didn't really suit him, but the only other option was the mage robes he had worn into the city, and they suited him even less. He regretted dropping his own clothes into a random hole in the woods outside of Helgen, though frankly they wouldn't have suited the situation. Reluctantly, he put on the damned clothes, but told Lydia that he'd prefer not to join the hall for lunch.
Being held at Dragonsreach wasn't really like being an actual prisoner, and Yngve supposed he should be thankful for that. In truth, it felt a little like being at home again, as a child. He was allowed to freely wander the castle, the grounds, and even the city, so long as Lydia, his new shadow, was with him. Of course, there were differences. In Windhelm, his housecarl's job was to keep him safe; this woman was here to keep him from escaping. After his lengthy rest, Yngve had hoped to explore the city a while. But Lydia was having none of it.
"It's been raining all morning," she said sternly. "We're not wandering around outside all afternoon in a rainstorm."
"Fine," Yngve conceded. "What do you know about Dragonsreach, then?"
As it turned out, she knew a lot. Lydia was able to take Yngve on a rather comprehensive tour of the keep, which allowed him to start to get a basic feel for the guards' patrol patterns and stationary positions and begin to compile a mental list of entry points to the building. Still, he hoped for better weather within the week. He still wanted to go outside the keep, and perhaps test the precise length of his leash at Dragonsreach.
Tirdas, 19th of Last Seed, 4E 201
Yngve woke at a reasonable hour this time, and as he had hoped the weather appeared more friendly; he would have his chance to explore the city of Whiterun. Lydia seemed suspicious of his motive for exploration, so Yngve played down his age. After all, he was young, by some people's reckoning still a boy. He had never spent any significant length of time in Whiterun, he told her, and it was no lie. It was also no lie that he was interested in seeing and experiencing the city – although that wasn't truthfully his interest right now. Lydia's expression softened when he told her these things, however, and she finally agreed to take him out into Whiterun. After breakfast.
Yngve did join the great hall for a meal this time, though he ate very little. He was too excited to exit the keep, too eager for the meal to be done. At one point, he worried that Jarl Balgruuf might notice and become suspicious, but it never happened. Given the Jarl's clear distraction and obvious lack of attention to the goings-on at his own table, Yngve had to really fight the urge to give all of the children of the household a well deserved smack in the mouth. Calling them unpleasant was a kindness.
Finally, when Yngve was sure he couldn't stand the children anymore, the meal ended, at least to Lydia's satisfaction. Finally, they could go. As they prepared to head into the city, Lydia asked what sounded at first like a peculiar question.
"Do you still have that hood you were wearing when you first came to Dragonsreach?"
"Yes… why?" Yngve answered hesitantly. Lydia paused in thought for a moment. It looked like she was having a hard time deciding what she had to say. "Well?" he prompted.
"There's not that much sympathy for your father in some parts of the city," she began. "Not that many of the people out there have ever seen you before, or would know what you look like, but…" Yngve could understand where she was going with this now. "It still might be a good precaution to hide your identity."
Yngve agreed with her, and was inwardly glad that she brought it up. As a general rule, he wanted as few people as possible to know he was in Whiterun, and as few as possible to have spotted him there, whether they knew who he was or not. He donned the hood from his previous outfit and, when Lydia agreed that he was unrecognizable as himself (whoever the people of Whiterun might think that was), he was ready.
The first thing Yngve did upon stepping out the main doors of Dragonsreach was breathe deeply, taking in the smell of the outside air. His room in the keep lacked windows, and the lingering smell of yesterday's rain in the dirt and on the stone was refreshing. After taking a moment to savor the air, Yngve turned to Lydia.
"Well, where should we go?" he asked.
"You're asking me?" she replied skeptically.
"You're the one who lives here," he said with a shrug. "I guess I just thought you'd have some wisdom to share."
"Well," said Lydia, "The Cloud District is just Dragonsreach, so you've seen that. I guess the only place to go would be down. There's the temple of Kynareth and the Companions' hall in the Wind District. And then there's the Plains District; that's where the market stalls and the taverns are."
The two went to the Plains District first. Yngve browsed the market stalls with mild interest. He had some septims that he had picked up in the keep in Helgen, and used them to buy a small chunk of cheese from one of the vendors. He could feel Lydia looking at him questioningly.
"You know, the Jarl has some of the finest cheeses from all over Skyrim imported to Dragonsreach," she said.
He shrugged at her. He didn't really see it that way, but he wasn't sure she would understand or agree. Every since his father had been giving him spending money, Yngve had been buying food from market stalls and taverns. In some cases, he even preferred the food he bought in the city to the food prepared in the Palace of the Kings, fine thought it was. It didn't have the same flavor or the same character. Fine, imported cheese didn't also come with the experience of the market, meeting the people responsible for their goods, and hearing their stories.
They wandered a little more, and Yngve made to go into the general goods store. But before he got to it, he felt Lydia's hand grab his shoulder and stop him. He turned around and gave her an annoyed look.
"What? Is something wrong?" he asked.
"What could you possibly need to buy?" she asked him somewhat pointedly. "You aren't going anywhere. There's nothing you could want or need that isn't available to you in Dragonsreach already."
"You don't like browsing?" Yngve asked, as innocently as he could. Maybe she's catching on to me, he thought for a moment.
Thankfully, Lydia decided to let it go, and they went into Belethor's general store. Yngve perused the wares and made a mental list of what was currently available in stock, while Belethor chatted them both up in pursuit of a sale. After leaving the general store, they did the same thing in the apothecary next door. Finally, although Yngve had no intention of buying arms or armor at any point, he went in to look around Warmaidens all the same.
After the market and the shops, Yngve had wanted to go into Jorrvaskr and learn some real history of the Companions – from the horse's mouth, so to speak. But Lydia wouldn't have it, for some reason, no matter how much Yngve tried to argue with her or protest. As retribution, he decided to while away the afternoon in thought. He sat on a bench in the Wind district, in earshot of the passionate ramblings of Heimskr, Whiterun's own local priest of Talos, knowing that as long as he was stopped there, Lydia would have to stop there, too. He knew he was being petty, but he couldn't help hoping that Lydia was in favor of the Empire, as he wanted this to annoy her.
In any case, Yngve did both need and want the time to think. As the afternoon wound down, he started to formulate the bones of an escape plan. Right now, his major obstacle was that he would have to work around Lydia.
"I'm feeling like a drink," he suggested to her, gesturing toward the Bannered Mare. "How about you? I'm buying," he offered. She chuckled good naturedly.
"If you're trying to get me good and drunk so you can slip off, then I've got some bad news for you," she said lightheartedly as they both stood and walked into the tavern.
She hadn't been lying or exaggerating, Yngve soon learned; Lydia could handle her drink, and he hadn't really counted on that. She could also hardly take her eyes off the performing bard; Yngve hadn't counted on that either, but it worked to his advantage. He bought her several drinks, thankful that he had at no point in his string of imprisonments been relieved of his coin. Slowly, he saw Lydia lose interest in anything else in the room, except that bard.
The next time Yngve approached the innkeeper for a refill, he asked if she could spare any parchment and allow him use of some writing tools. He was prepared to pay her for these things, but she didn't require him to. He asked the server to take another drink over to Lydia and quickly wrote on the parchment, blowing the ink as dry as he could. It would be a little smudged in the end, but should still be legible. Then he folded and pocketed it, and went to enjoy the night. He enjoyed most of the bard's songs, danced with the maidens and girls, and generally reveled in everyone's collective good time. Everything in his life had been too serious for so long, it felt like it had been years since he'd had any fun.
When Yngve felt sure he had sufficiently raised the atmosphere in the tavern – when he was sure that no one would notice – he decided to initiate the next step in his developing escape plan. He discreetly took an orphan girl, Lucia, aside.
"Do you think you could do a job for me?" he asked her. "It pays. Ten septims."
"What do I have to do?" she asked, sounding uncertain.
"It's very simple," he assured her. "The only thing you have to do is deliver this note," he said, pulling the parchment he had written on earlier out of his pocket, "and this bag," he continued, taking a small coin purse out of his other pocket, "to Heimskr."
"And don't let anyone else read the paper, or even see that you're delivering anything to him. Can you do that?" he asked, holding his breath. Right now, everything of his plan depended on her answer and her sensibility.
"Okay," she said, with a light shrug. She didn't even ask what, or why. This was the easiest phase of the plan, it turned out. Yngve thanked her, trustingly gave her the ten septims for her payment, and even bought her a meal on top of it. All he had left to do was wait, and hope that Lucia would be true to her word, that she could follow through uninterrupted, that Heimskr would believe what he had written in the note, and that the priest would help him.
All the window shopping during the day hadn't been for nothing. Yngve had been keeping a running total in his mind as he wandered the market, adding up the cost of everything he would need from the vendors in order to travel at least as far as his father's territory again – if not the whole way back to Windhelm. In the note to Heimskr, he simply explained his situation and his plight, asking Heimskr to buy the supplies and leave them in a backpack behind the statue of Talos. The coin purse held more than enough to cover the cost. Yngve would simply have to wait – at least a day, perhaps longer – and make his escape when he thought he could.