Skyrim: Here’s Why Lucia Is Missing (& How To Get Her Back)

Numerous orphaned children are wandering the streets of Skyrim. Some are orphaned because of the civil war taking place in Skyrim, and some simply got swept up in unfortunate circumstances and were left to fend for themselves. Luckily, you can adopt a child in Skyrim and provide it with a safe home, given you have the resources and enough room. One specific child you can adopt is Lucia, an Imperial girl wandering the streets of Whiterun and begging. Since Lucia is a pretty popular child when it comes to adoption, many players did indeed give Lucia a new home, only for her to disappear, seemingly forever, for no reason. This is why we’ve decided to put together this guide. Let’s see why Lucia is missing and, most importantly, how to get her back. 

Lucia often returns to Whiterun if you move her somewhere else 

Lucia is an Imperial girl situated in Whiterun’s Wind District; she can often be found begging on the streets. You can take pity on Lucia and adopt her, and considering that there’s a perfectly good house in Whiterun that you can move her into – Breezehome, that solves part of our problem. 

Since Breezehome is neither the most convenient nor the biggest house in the game, many players prefer to move their families and adopt children somewhere else. If you’ve moved Lucia to another house, you might find her missing one day. 

For some unknown reason, Lucia is affected by a bug, and she often returns to Whiterun even if another hold is now her home. If you’ve noticed that she is missing and can’t be found near the house or your Heathfire house, you might want to check out Whiterun’s Wind District since there is a good chance that you will find her there. 

Once you locate Lucia in Whiterun, you can simply order her to return home. In that case, she will start her long trek toward her designated home. You don’t have to worry about Lucia getting killed on the roads; children cannot be harmed in Skyrim under any circumstances, which means that she will always reach her destination safely.

This is one of the bugs that was fixed with the Unofficial Skyrim Patch, and if you’re looking to avoid this, I recommend installing it.  

Lucia sometimes gets stuck inside Carlotta Valentia’s house 

As a beggar, Lucia socializes with a lot of people from Whiterun, including other children, and one of them is Mila Valentia. Mila Valentia is the daughter of Carlotta Valentia, one of the stall merchants that can be found near the Bannered Mare in Whiterun. Lucia and Mila are known to socialize, and Lucia often likewise begs near Carlotta’s stall. It’s unknown why this bug occurs, but Lucia can sometimes be stuck inside Carlotta’s house. 

Lucia can’t leave the house since the house is always locked, and Carlotta carries the only key. If Lucia is missing, and you can’t find her around the Wind District (or your own house), always make sure to check out Carlotta’s house. 

Since the house is mostly locked, you might need to pick the lock to ensure no guards are around when you’re planning this rescue mission. There’s also no guarantee that Lucia will not be stuck inside the house in the future. 

Sometimes Lucia disappears from the game completely 

If you’ve searched Whiterun & ensured that Lucia is not inside Carlotta’s house, the last bug that may occur is the most serious. Sometimes, Lucia disappears from the game for some unknown reason and cannot be located through the usual means. 

If you’re on PC, you have several options: teleporting Lucia to your location or simply spawning another copy of Lucia. 

So let’s start with the teleporting option since it affects fewer things in the game and is less likely to be broken further down the line. To teleport Lucia to you, follow these steps: 

1. Open the console by pressing “~.” 
2.  Type Prid <refID> in Lucia’s case, RefID is xx003F5E; press enter (replace the xx with the number that Hearhtfire holds in your load order)
3.  Type moveto player and press enter.
4.  If you’ve done everything right, Lucia should appear at your location. 

If you can’t teleport Lucia to your location, it means that she despawned completely for whatever reason. You can always create a new copy of Lucia, but there is no guarantee that you will be able to adopt her, especially if you have one more child adopted besides Lucia. Still, you can try. You can spawn Lucia by using player.placeatme xx003F5E command. Once again, you need to replace the xx with the number that Hearthfire has in your load order. In my case, Hearthfire is fourth. This means that Lucia’s refID is 04003F5E. 

And that’s pretty much it. Lucia tends to disappear quite often, and sometimes the problem is easily remedied; sometimes, her adoption mechanics can permanently glitch out, especially if you use the command to spawn another copy of her. Luckily most of the bugs can be prevented by installing the Unofficial Skyrim Patch.

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