Vasilisa Dragomir

**Vasilisa Sabina Rhea "Lissa" Dragomir** is Rose's best friend and the last Dragomir until the discovery of her illegitimate half-sister Jill. She specializes in spirit and makes Rose shadow-kissed by bringing her back to life following the car crash which killed her. She's elected as Queen following Tatiana's death.

## History

### Blood Promise

Rose often checks in on her through the bond while she's looking for Dimitri in Russia. Lissa misses Rose a lot, and confides in Christian about it. When Avery Lazar shows up at the Academy, Lissa is initially hostile towards her, thinking Tatiana sent her to spy on her, but warms up after hearing her father speak harshly to her.

Avery encourages Lissa to go to Court with her, Adrian, and Jill one weekend. When Lissa drunkenly kisses Aaron at a party, Avery is unconcerned but when Reed speaks harshly to Jill, she warns her brother to back off.

Lissa gradually returns to her partying ways due to Avery's influence, and Christian reluctantly breaks up with her as a result. Everyone is unaware that Avery is actually a spirit user and that she's hoping to make Lissa her third shadow-kissed bondmate.

One night, Lissa is on a window and about to fall because of Avery's compulsion, but Rose manages to help Lissa fight off the compulsion. Once Rose returns to the Academy, they spend time catching up and Lissa makes Rose swear if she ever does anything dangerous again, they would do it together.

### Silver Shadows

Lissa appears when Adrian again requests her to look into Sydney's abduction to re-education by Alchemists. She adamantly refuses his request of sending a "strike team" to break into Alchemist facilities as that would be seen as a declaration of war and because her responsibilities are to her own people.

She is seen again when Sydney and Adrian flee to Court after getting married. When she questions why they got married, Adrian proclaims his love for Sydney and requests that she give him and Sydney sanctuary. Despite the Alchemists' demands that she turn Sydney over to their custody, Lissa declares that they are both under her protection while they're at Court and that she would grant them both sanctuary.

## Appearance

Described as angelic by Rose, Vasilisa is beautiful and captivating, and looks around eighteen. Like most female Moroi, she is tall and slim. She has a beautiful pale-skinned complexion, jade-green eyes, and platinum-blond hair. When she smiles, she does not show her fangs. In the movie adaptation Lissa has full lips and curly, golden-blonde hair.

## Personality

Lissa is very friendly, kind, and compassionate. She has a kind heart, usually tries to reach out, and will go out of her way to make others feel included. She hates to see others in pain, especially people she cares about, which is the primary reason she wants to continue using spirit, because she loves the fact that she can use it to help people. She also has great love for animals, and despises seeing them in pain as well. Because of her emphatic nature, Lissa continues to use spirit to help others despite the constant threat of insanity gaining strength with each each healing.

Lissa is extremely skilled in social interactions, due in part to the natural charisma that spirit brings about but also due to her personality.  She dislikes being a part of the Academy's social crowd because it just involves too many head games and it tires her out.

Lissa is rather idealistic. She believes strongly in equal rights for all Moroi, both royal and non-royal, as well as for dhampirs. She holds great disdain for the elitism of many royals, finding it selfish, snobby, and unfair. She also dislikes the treatment of dhampirs as property. She can get somewhat worked up when talking about such concepts, shown during her first private audience with Queen Tatiana. She also dislikes the Queen for attempting to control her life and keep her on the track as an elite Moroi princess.

Lissa prefers to carefully think out a plan before taking action, though she has complete faith in Rose's ability to protect her. Despite her belief that dhampirs should not be taken for granted, Lissa relies heavily on Rose to protect her, often turning to Rose whenever she is hurt or afraid.

Despite Lissa's strength, she can be quite fragile at times, mostly due to the negative effects spirit has on one's mind. Before she and Rose flee the Academy, and for a time after their return, Lissa experiences such emotional turmoil that she begins cutting herself in order to control the pain. While she claims she doesn't want to die, and hates pain, she states that the pain gave her something else to focus on, which helps her control the darkness. She's also susceptible to becoming addicted to compulsion, using it on teachers and students whether on purpose or not.

Lissa is very intelligent and works hard at her schoolwork. She dislikes that most Moroi are forced to go small colleges for their own protection, which is why she accepted the Queen's offer to attend Lehigh University. It is said that she has perfect grades.

## Abilities

### Spirit

Lissa is a Moroi girl who has the rare element of spirit. Originally, she was thought to have not specialized at all, but the truth is revealed by Victor. Lissa is an excellent healer although using too much takes a mental toll on her. Her sensitivity makes her want to use her powers when she sees something hurt or killed. Such incidents result in depression and her cutting herself. This improves as Rose begins to absorb her emotional darkness through the bond created when Lissa brought Rose back to life, a very straining process. When Jesse tortured her, her anger allowed her to bring out images of evil from spirit. She is also able to create illusions making Jesse believe spiders are crawling all over him after he tortures her in *Shadow Kiss.* With Adrian's help, she learns to sense auras and can control when she sees them. Lissa is also incredibly charismatic.

### Charming

She also learns to charm silver objects with spirit to heal the spirit darkness and to charm a silver stake to restore a Strigoi in *Spirit Bound*.

### Compulsion

Lissa has the ability to use her compulsion to an extraordinary extent. She sometimes uses too much compulsion to the point where it is very draining for her and physically harms whoever she is compelling. She sometimes accidentally uses it, not realizing her capabilities. She can also compel more than one person at once.

## Relationships

### Rose Hathaway

Rose and Lissa become best friends in their childhood and are like sisters. Lissa brings Rose back to life when she dies in a car crash, creating a one way bond between them. Rose comforts Lissa through her depression and takes the darkness of spirit from her via the bond. Lissa and Rose escape the Academy for two years, during which time Rose feeds Lissa her blood. Rose is increasingly jealous when Lissa begins dating Christian as she doesn't like sharing her. Rose originally drives them apart, but admits she was wrong when she realizes they're perfect for each other. Rose chooses Dimitri over Lissa and abandons her, hurting Lissa deeply. She returns in time to comfort her over her break up with Christian. Whenever the two are separated, Rose uses the bond to check on Lissa. In her spirit dream, Lissa's biggest fear is that Rose will die protecting her. When Tasha attempts to shoot Lissa, Rose jumps in the way and almost dies. However, when she survives, the bond between them breaks. Rose becomes Lissa's guardian and Lissa gives Dimitri to Christian so that he can still be with Rose.

### Dimitri Belikov

Dimitri is the one to return Rose and Lissa to the Academy. He is assigned to be Lissa's guardian. Lissa doesn't let Rose kill Dimitri when she has the chance, instead staking him with a spirit stake and restoring him. He pledges his allegiance to her but refuses to talk to Rose. Lissa eventually convinces him to go on the run with Rose to protect her and he obliges. Lissa feels that she is to blame for Rose and Dimitri's relationship so she has Dimitri reassigned to Christian so Rose can be with Dimitri again.

### Christian Ozera

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Lissa and Christian know each other before she leaves with Rose, but upon her return they become friends. He falls in love with her and is hurt when Rose tells him that Lissa doesn't care about him. He then rebuffs Lissa, sending her into the arms of her ex-boyfriend Aaron. He convinces her that she doesn't care about Aaron and kisses her, but she gets mad at him. He stows away on the rescue mission to save her and is nearly mauled to death by psi-hounds. Lissa heals his injuries and they begin dating. After a month of dating, he loses his virginity to her. When Rose abandons her, he's there for her to comfort her. He's jealous of Adrian and threatens him. Under Avery's control, Lissa kisses Aaron and decides not to tell Christian. However, Jill tells him instead and he breaks up with her. Lissa's jealous when he begins to spend time with Mia and Jill and flirts with other guys in retaliation. After Rose is arrested, he kisses her, admitting that he never stopped loving her, and they get back together. Christian becomes much less self-conscious in his relationship with Lissa and jokes about Blake's interest in her. She makes Dimitri Christian's guardian.

### Adrian Ivashkov

Lissa meets Adrian at the ski lodge and soon discovers he, like her, has specialized in spirit. She goes to his room and they become friends as they bond over their power. Christian becomes immensely jealous of Adrian's time spent with her. Lissa begins defending Adrian from Rose. He teaches her to sense auras and walk dreams and she teaches him to heal. Their relationship is similar to a brother and sister.

### Eddie Castile

Lissa and Eddie are both friends of Rose. Eddie considers Lissa to be one of the good royals. Eddie is one of the few people to be told about Lissa's power of spirit. He's assigned to her for the field experience and they grow closer, becoming good friends. He takes his responsibilities seriously and tries to spend as much time with her as possible. When Lissa runs for Queen, Eddie and Janine plan to take rotating shifts to guard her as they are two of the few who can be trusted with her. Lissa doesn't find it as awkward to have Eddie in the room while she sleeps as she finds it to have Janine there. Eddie insists on accompanying her to her test. Eddie's suspicious of Ambrose and feels the need to protect Lissa from him. He kills a Moroi who attacks Lissa, getting him in deep trouble and earning him a suspension form his guardian duties. Lissa sends Eddie to watch over Jill, trusting him with her.

## Etymology

***Vasilisa*** is a Greek and Russian female name meaning "Queen". The name comes from the fairy tales in Russian of a princess who is called either Vasilisa the Beautiful or Vasilisa the Wise.

***Sabina*** is a Latin name from the name "Sabine" which means "Sabine Women" as the Sabine Women where groups of women in the era of Remus and Romulus in Rome.

***Rhea*** is a Greek name meaning "Flowing". It comes from the Greek gods are the Mother of the Gods was Rhea and she was the Titian of Generation, Fertility and Motherhood. Vasilisa shares the name as her mother Rhea Dragomir.

***Dragomir*** is a South-Slavic surname meaning "to whom peace is precious". As *Drag*means "dear, precious", *mir* means "peace". It is also a formation of the word Dragon which is the symbol of the Dragomir family.

## Trivia

* Lissa is portrayed by Australian actress Lucy Fry*.*
* Lissa is seen to be similar to deceased Queen Alexandra since they both rule when they were young.
* Lissa is linked to the Ozera family through her grandmother being an Ozera, and that of her boyfriend being an Ozera family member.
* She is of Russian and Romanian descent. Russian through her father's linage and Romanian through her mother's lineage.
* In the film, Lissa has control over all the elements, though to a limit as if she uses too much of the other elements she is effect by the Spirit Darkness (along with Rose)
* Instead of cutting her wrists like in books, she instead in the film has her wrists slit by the darkness effects of her element; Spirit.