I am invested in the hewn city girl lore. Rhysand figured it out, what does he do next? Where is she kept, what is she taught, does he tell anyone? (ignore if I am annoying you)
you could literally never annoy me this is like my favorite form of enrichment and you being interested in my rambling is so very kind<3
alright — rhysand figured it out! i think his first course of action is to assess how he wants to deal with azriel. he like, at once, completely understands how his brother feels about this and why he has dipped out without explaining anything. everything slots right into place for him mentally. rhysand doesn't blame or condemn azriel the way azriel fears, but like. he gets it. lived it a little himself. shit's weird. best to fuck off until it isn't anymore. i think rhysand winds up putting a pin in finding azriel to deal with hc!girl and to keep from upsetting azriel any further with the fact that he now knows — and how he knows.
now this is tricky because ... does the ic ... do they fuckin raise hc!girl? i imagine she's probably mid-teens, but it still makes it crunchy because even if rhysand somehow manages not to tell anyone, not even feyre, his involvement alone will now shape her life. and one thing about rhysand is he is not going to be uninvolved. it's not in his nature. (that's why azriel had to force himself into exile — it's not in his nature to be uninvolved either.) worse yet, rhysand almost definitely does tell feyre. probably cassian, too, because cassian wouldn't just let azriel's absence go; he would get angry that rhysand wasn't doing more to find their brother and demand explanation. at that point the whole ic is probably telephone-style informed until they're all pulling an i know something ... do you know something? friends moment. but like either way, i fear that hc!girl is kept pretty close to the ic.
maaaybe she's trained with the valkyries? safe, female-led, ensures she can protect herself, ensures they can keep eyes on her without seeming too overbearing about it? depending on how traumatizing she finds being taken from her home and going from kept beneath the ground to confronted with the unending vastness of the open world, she might even feel most comfortable in the library with the priestesses, where the solidity of the rough-hewn walls can provide her something to ground herself with. but i could also see her living at the river estate, engaging in like a pseudo parent/child relationship with feyre and rhysand, learning to paint, learning to bake, learning any abilities she has, learning how to even exist outside of the hewn city. if you want a more sinister rhysand and crunchier dynamic for when azriel finally returns, maybe rhysand goes with the latter to ensure kinship with and loyalty from azriel's mate so that even if azriel ever thought to prioritize his mate over the ic, she wouldn't want him to.
