( CHARACTER ★ INFORMATION )

DOES THIS CHARACTER MEET SKELETAL BASICS? Yes.
NAME & AGE: Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, very stubbornly known as Ciri. Age is between 21 and 23 based on timeline events and dates, though she has gone from world to world and it's unknown how much time has passed for her.
CANON & CANON POINT: The Witcher series; taken just after burying Skjall and returning to the boat to prepare in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
CANON INFORMATION: HERE, including both book canon and game canon. Spoilers for the Witcher 3: Wild Hunt and its endings abound.

PERSONALITY:

"Death followed her - everyone she'd loved had died."

Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon is a child born into greatness. She is the daughter of Emhyr var Emreis, Emperor of Nilfgaard, and a descendant of Lara Dorren, making her a child of the Elder Blood. The Elder Blood is an experiment crafted by the elves to create a being with powers far superior to their own. It is said that Ciri is powerful enough to topple worlds, should her powers be enhanced, cultivated, or allowed to blossom to their full potential. For this reason, she is great...and because of this, she is pursued by the Wild Hunt.

In truth, Ciri has been hunted by people all of her life. In the books, she is first almost taken by the dryads when she is lost in the woods; then, she is hunted by those who participated in the Slaughter of Cintra and who killed her grandmother; then, she is chased by others who wish for her power; lastly, she is hunted and pursued by the elves who desire her power for themselves, as they would see her become their conductor. It's no wonder that Ciri is used to running from everything and everyone, scared and angry. Her power has caused her a great deal of suffering from her birth to the present, and she would be happy to get rid of it if it meant she could be 'normal' like her father-figure, Geralt. Alas, this isn't the case.

This does not mean that Ciri is a frightened or anxious woman. Quite the contrary: she is brave and strong, forced to be powerful enough to stand against her enemies. Though she might run, she is more than willing to fight to pave the way for her freedom and happiness. Each and every person who has tried to take her has been met with resistance, whether it was simply verbal defiance or an outright battle, and she shows no flagging will. When life has given her a challenge, she has conquered it, regardless of the consequences. She is not always successful - she has lost almost everyone she has ever loved along the way - and she does not always come out ahead, but she is at least willing to try. No matter what, she fights for her freedom and the safety of others.

In this way, Ciri is incredibly protective of the people she cares for. Having lost so much, she is desperate to keep her loved ones safe. This extends most immediately to Geralt, Yennefer, Triss, Dandelion, and the other witchers at Kaer Morhen. But this eventually extends to the friends and acquaintances she meets along the way. Ciri enjoys brief dalliances of a normal life with these people, especially those who find kindness in their hearts to help her in some way. It's so rare for her that Ciri accepts anyone who extends hospitality to her with solidarity and trust, even loyalty. She is most assuredly loyal to those who are outcasts or not normal, like the shapeshifting halfling or the circus troupe she befriends. By extending her kindness to those who are more likely to accept her, she tries to form lasting friendships and acquaintances that she can help. Her kindness, too, extends towards most children, as they don't know any better and lack the malice and spite of typical closed-minded adults.

"What do you know about saving the world, silly? You're just a simple witcher."

Dandelion asserts that Ciri has learned 'human decency' from Geralt, something that nobles like her do not often have. In truth, Ciri was a brat as a child and learned to be appreciative because of her time with the Wolf School witchers and with others. Her great sense of loss contributes to this, forcing her to make attachments and ties where she can and to live life expecting anything. In fact, Ciri seems to expect trouble wherever she goes, not unlike Geralt himself. Still, she looks to help others in need, and in one of the endings she becomes a witcher on the Path, protecting people from monsters and honing her skills on the road. Wanting for nothing and living from job to job, she hasn't a care in the world, and looks only into extending what's hers for others. But even in the second ending, when she becomes empress, Dandelion predicts that she will be a great ruler simply because she has a great deal of inner strength and kindness, something lacking in most anyone at court. It shows in her interactions with others, how she is kind when she does not need to be, and how she understands the troubles of others.

But Ciri is also stubborn, refusing to change her mind for anyone but herself. She is adamant about eventually going after and fighting the Wild Hunt and then facing the White Frost. She likes to dance to her own tune and kick up dust in the face of destiny. Ciri's fate has been tangled with Geralt and with destiny too much for her to be content with the hand she's been dealt. Though destiny has given her a new home and a better life than the one she might have had at court or with the elves, it has also beaten her time and time again, taken her loved ones and killed them in front of her, made her powerless to save anyone. If she has the chance to defy destiny in any way, she will, simply because she can. Pleas to keep herself safe go unheeded; Ciri often butts heads with Avallac'h, Vesemir, and Yennefer because of this, and even Geralt to some extent when he tries to force her to do anything. She is too strong within her, her heart too proud, to back down for anyone. Ciri might have a bit of a death wish about her, believing she'd rather be dead than be used against her loved ones, and she would certainly never want to see some of them die again.

"You don't know how it is...to see someone you love die because of you - for you."

There is a darkness to Ciri that has been fueled by loss. When the Wild Hunt comes to Kaer Morhen and her loved ones are threatened, Ciri accepts the loss and moves to sacrifice herself. But when Vesemir dies to protect her, Ciri loses not only her composure and control over her abilities, but she also loses the initial uncertainty and fear that came with her powers and the Wild Hunt. Ciri becomes driven by revenge for a time, both against the man who kills Vesemir (Imlerith) but also the Wild Hunt as a whole and its leader (Eredin). Her anger threatens to lash out and bubble up against everyone and anything in her path, striking even against Geralt and Yennefer when they try to push her to stay back. She is driven to make Imlerith pay for what he's done and though she eventually must fight the Crones instead of him, she uses this as her time to seek to avenge Vesemir and to punish the Crones for trying to attack her earlier in the game. Her rage is so great that she kills two of the Crones, ladies with amazing power, and nearly kills the third. This anger stays with her, and the threat of Ciri losing control becomes an all too real possibility for a time, despite all of the care and support offered by her friends. Loss has stripped her of her magic; her trauma and pain has dampened her ability to use magic like a sorceress and she has given up that part of herself because it is tied to her happiness. Without happiness, without the certainty of a fulfilling life, she has cast it all aside. It shows how pained she is, how twisted up her heart is within her, for her to lose almost all connection to the power that is not only rightfully hers because of the Elder Blood but power that she could blossom into something so much more than her, something she could use to protect others. But some part of her remains broken, because she cannot use proper magic without help.

When she gets like this, her emotions become haphazard, and doubt and uncertainty (both the result of her fear of losing control) compound in a negative feedback loop that feeds into her anger. She eventually uses it properly in her fight against Calanthir, but this does not mean she has control of her rage. Not by a long shot. Instead, Ciri uses her anger at times to be immature and mischievous, and she will go so far as to prank nobles or steal their horses for others, and destroy an acquaintance's workshop because she believes he is using her for his own gains. It doesn't make her the better person in the slightest, of course, but it teaches her to let off steam instead of burying her pain and anguish inside until she becomes a powder keg, something that will undoubtedly cause her to lash out and destroy anything in her path.

COURT ALLIANCE & REASONING:

I'm going to leave this up to the mods because while Ciri would, based on book canon and game canon, fit somewhat more into Unseelie, she is also driven very strongly by duty. I'm going to break it down per court and let you guys decide.

Unseelie: Ciri believes in freedom and is the very definition of such. The swallow is her marker, the idea of flying so high that she will eventually fall, valuing what she wishes over anything else. She is angered when people try to dictate her life for her, whether those individuals are her father Emhyr, sorceresses like Phillipa or Yennefer, or anyone else. Her destiny is her own to make. She does not see the need to stifle magic like many other political leaders do and does not believe in limits. While she can understand and appreciate the life of a witcher, someone who kills monsters to protect people and, therefore, limits their population...when it comes to people, she recognizes that there are all types, and all of them should be free. But she is a vengeful soul too; when Vesemir dies, her thoughts are clouded with rage and thoughts of vengeance, and she goes after Imlerith with Geralt, and also the Crones.

Seelie: That being said, Ciri's sense of duty is strangely absolute. This might seem like an odd thing to say after everything I have pointed out or even based on most of her personality, but Ciri has spent the majority of the books and the game running from her duty, which is that of an empress. But based on what Geralt does/tells her throughout the game, whether he supports her or limits her freedom based solely on how he treats her (if he coddles her, if he insists he has to be around her). Being coddled and being treated like a child results in her failure and possible demise; supporting her freedom pushes her either to live the life she wishes to lead (that of a witcher like him) or the life she should lead (that of an empress). In both, she takes on the responsibility of her greatest duty, and that is of a monster hunter or a royal. But even further, it is Ciri who recognizes that she needs to defeat the White Frost, no matter the cost to herself, and it is she who is willing beyond all others around her to sacrifice herself to see it stopped. It isn't Avallac'h or Geralt who insist she does this, and no matter how Geralt has treated her throughout the books or game she will still decide to do this. It shows Ciri's strength of character but also her sense of duty and how important it is. Defeating the Wild Hunt was, yes, incredibly important too, but it was a stepping stone into completing the much more integral task of saving her world and all of the worlds, no matter what that meant personally for her.

ABILITIES:

Ciri has been trained to be a witcher, a sorceress, and a killer. The former and latter are those trainings that have stayed with her, as she has rejected her capability for magic despite being a Source and a descendant of Lara Dorren with Elder Blood in her veins.

She is incredibly fast and agile on her feet, has a great deal of stamina for long, drawn-out fights, and is very powerful. In game, she is capable, by her final fight with the Wild Hunt and Calanthir, of simply slicing through her enemies with one strike and then moving on, far surpassing Geralt in terms of sheer force of strength and prowess. What Geralt excels at, of course, is skill; where Ciri can fight and slaughter her way through enemies, Geralt knows more about exploiting weaknesses, and he has been fighting for many years more than she has.

Ciri also has powers unique to her. While she has the penchant for magic, those skills are mostly, if not completely, lost to her. Only through a unicorn's channeling was she able to use her power to heal and save Geralt and Yennefer. She would need a very capable trainer like Avallac'h to hone her skills, as most of them are locked due to trauma. The game shows several abilities, however, that she can use:

Charge - Ciri uses her power to shoot forward across a short distance in the blink of an eye, sword out, and passes through an opponent to strike at them. This does not auto-kill them; instead, it allows her to cross a short distance of the battlefield to stab a single target. (Shown here.)

Blink - Ciri charges up her power, encasing a short area in green-blue. Any enemies in this area, she can then attack. She will vanish and appear behind each of them within seconds, slashing once and then moving to the next. She blinks behind each of them in turn and then will appear by the last once she has completed the attack. (Shown here.)

Dodge - Her dodge ability, unlike Geralt's, is to simple phase through enemies so they cannot hit her. She can still be struck prior to the ability being used, obviously, and if her moves are anticipated, she can be struck directly after she moves. (Shown here.)

Teleport - Ciri can teleport across long distances. Originally in the books, she could not do this properly. It is tied to her ability to leap across space and time to whatever world she pleases, only it allows her now to appear wherever she wishes in the world. It takes energy and power but she can successfully perform this ability even when very weakened. (Suggested cap: Only allowing her to teleport to places she has been before in the Drabwurld or to somewhere she can see with her eyes, like if she needed to get across a chasm and could see the ledge on the other side.) [Shown here.]

World-hopping - Ciri can teleport to other worlds, as she is the Lady of Space and Time. She does not always know where she is going or what the world is like, but she can do it, and she says it's as easy as breathing. It is tied with her teleportation ability. (Suggested cap: Ciri will not be able to use this ability to leave the world, obviously.) Nerfed.

Scream - When Ciri is overcome by the loss of one of her comrades in game, she snaps and screams, sending out shockwaves of power that begins to crush stone and crumble parts of Kaer Morhen. It also is so strong that it nearly kills Eredin and the other stronger members of the Wild Hunt. Several soldiers do die due to the pressure and power, and she nearly loses herself in her power and in her grief. This is an ability she cannot control and is strong enough to do a great deal of damage to the immediate surrounding area, and also to herself. (Suggested cap: Nerfed upon arrival with the potential to gain it back only under great duress and stress.)

Other magic: Ciri is capable of spells and healing, but as she cannot use them properly without a catalyst or tutor, I'd like for her not to be able to use magic without proper in-game training.

INVENTORY:

The clothes on her back, a warm scruff to keep her warm, a half-cloak for around her shoulders, and her sword. A charm stone from Triss that she can use to call down fire for a very few moments. [This charm stone would not work as fire does not work without a fire god in Eachdraidh.]