So there’s a lot of interesting background for this scene from the script development that I want to talk about. This laboratory is designated as ‘a pleasure alcove’, so the juxtaposition of pragmatic/romantic registers is intentional, and it exists across multiple versions of the script.
For starters, Ciri explains that when they returned to this world, Avallac’h ‘was going to teleport there (the lab) for a moment to pick something up and… he didn’t want to take me with him. He was acting strangely at the time.’ She then has some serious pre-lab anxiety: she asks her parents to come with her, but then, when they get to the island at Pali Gap, the following unfolds:
557449-50: You wanted us to come here with you. What’s the matter?
557473: And now I want to be alone.
557484: What’s the matter?
557486: Nothing.
557487: So what? Should we go outside and wait? Or maybe you’ll change your mind again and call us in a moment?
557489: Leave me alone. I don’t want to argue with you.
557503: Maybe it would be best if we all left.
557505: No! I… want to find out what Avallach was doing here. But it only concerns me. And that’s why I want to be left alone.
557511: No way. Whatever we uncover here… if it concerns you, it concerns us too.
557518: Geralt, I’m an adult now. I have to deal with this on my own.
557543: What’s wrong with you?
557547: I don’t know… This place has a strange effect on me.
557549: That’s why we won’t leave you here alone.
She wants her parents to come with her, but she also doesn’t want them to come inside. Because Ciri knows that whatever she might find - or whatever she hopes to find - might be too private, confusing, or embarrassing.
Part of it is evidence of being seen as a subject of genetic studies, ‘some kind of freak, the result of experiments’, which makes Ciri demand if it bothers Geralt and Yennefer that she is a mutant; particularly after Yen makes impressed noises at the elf having ‘peformed full allelic heterogenesis’ and wishing to see such a mutated object up close. Ciri wishes to be valued for herself by the people most important to her, and has internalized a decent amount of shame about being ‘abnormal.’ Avallac’h, by this point, has become one of those people. But she already knows that this is one of the reasons Avallac’h is interested in her; hence, the laboratory visit is also about other mutually understated feelings.
An alternative dialogue about the portraits (that preceded the one we got, I assume) goes like this:
563137: This must be Ciri’s portrait.
563139: No, that’s not me. There’s no scar.
563140: It’s definitely you. Hmm, well captured.
563141 [DEBUG]: Jedzie Ciri, że Avallach by w życiu jej nie tknął.
563142 [DEBUG]: Ciri sie wkurza i mówi, że chciałby. Catfight.
563141 [DEBUG]: He (Geralt) makes fun of Ciri that Avallac'h would never touch her.
563142 [DEBUG]: Ciri gets pissed off and says “you wish!”. Catfight.
Having had several Polish friends take a look at these lines, this is what we arrived at; ‘catfight’ being the flavour of this whole exchange between Ciri and Geralt, which in the final game appears as: ‘Sure Avallac’h is only interested in you for your magical abilities?’ + ‘Phh, very funny.’ Effectively, Ciri’s defensive anger shows she’s been lowkey hoping he desires her, and Geralt hits a nerve.
Also afterward, when Avallac’h’s lover goes off on Ciri, one of the variations of her response to Geralt’s inquiry into whether ‘Avallac’h means that much to you?’ was, ‘So what!?’ Or 563882: No i co z tego!? which is something like ‘Well and what of that?’ if I am not mistaken.
So the romantic subtext was still more explicit before release.
Particularly since in an even earlier version of the script we have Avallac’h explicitly telling Geralt he cherishes the memory of the lake where he and Ciri first met, sees what they did in Lady of the Lake as a necessity Geralt will never understand, and then:
311976: Don’t get so emotional. After all, Ciri is just a tool for you. A carrier of the priceless Elder Blood.
311978: I admit, that was how it was at first. But then I saw a person in her. A wonderful person.
311980: It’s a shame the rest of the Wild Hunt didn’t see that.
311982: I regret it too. Trust me.