3. OSTRANENIE | BABA YAGA | WC: 909
Baba Yaga knew the stories they wrote about her. Her, an evil witch, who tricked and devoured people too naive to not stray into the woods. Her, who offered unfair prices and deceived people into unfair deals. They weren't wrong, per say, but they were missing a great part of the story.
Her motivation.
No, Baba Yaga did not trick and devour people out of any particular wickedness or general evilness. That wasn't really her cup of tea. All she'd ever wanted to do was help people see another way to look at things, help people peer differently at the world and learn something new, even if it was about something terribly ordinary… Baba Yaga didn't think anything was ordinary.
She liked to tell people that that was where her true power came from, in her ability to see beyond the superficial into the profound. It was more untrue than true, but it didn't make it a lie — Baba Yaga, like most of those who were more than human, preferred not to lie whenever she could. It was what led Baba Yaga here, to a quaint little park in New York, sitting in a bench with it's black paint peeling to reveal the dull metal beneath, her shawl wrapped tight around her shoulders as she listened to the delighted screams of children as they clambered over the play structure, presumably playing some game of their own invention.
Baba Yaga pulled open her newspaper with gnarled fingers, carefully avoiding tearing the edges as she hummed to herself, the sound coming deep from her throat. She glanced over the page at the headlines, attention split between reading and listening to the happy laughter of children. Were she feeling any less warm this morning, she might be more inclined to steal away with one, but it was a cozy autumn morning and the young faoladh who'd sold her coffee and scones this morning had blessed her day with nothing more than a brilliant smile.
Baba Yaga rested her newspaper on her lap, taking a sip of her coffee as she looked over the others at the park. Most were children, scrambling and tripping all over the place, but there were also parents lingering on the benches along the outskirts of the playground, reading papers and books or chatting comfortably. It was peaceful and idyllic in a way Baba Yaga rarely used to have terrible difficulties witnessing, but nowadays, when it was rude to comment on the way her nose crooked and her wrinkles and warts and jagged teeth, no one did more than glance uneasily in her direction.
She never bothered to look anything other than the part of an old witch, skirt and shawl multi-colored and long, her hair pulled back in a brightly colored headscarf. It was a look not quite the same as the way she appeared back home, but it suited her just fine here. Baba Yaga scratched at her knee through her skirt, stopping when she felt her sharp fingernails start to tear through the fabric, turning instead to finishing her coffee and picking her paper back up again. She settled in to read, crossing her legs and reading languidly through the paper.
It was blissfully peaceful, listening as she was to the intermittent crow calls and the low susurrus of cooing pigeons, the babbling laughter and shrieks of children and the lull of distant conversation, plus the neverending honk and holler from deeper in the city.
"Hi, ma'am, could I join you? The other benches are full," a close voice interrupted her reading, and Baba Yaga looked up slowly at the woman who spoke. She was terribly young, with soft brown hair and an even softer smile, and her eyes were terribly clear.
"Of course, dearie," Baba Yaga gestured for the woman to sit, watching her curiously as she glanced over to one of the playing children. "You have beautiful eyes," Baba Yaga complimented, following her gaze to a young boy with ungroomed black hair and sea-green eyes she could pick out from here. A demigod. A Greek demigod with a very stormy lineage.
"Thank you," the clear-sighted woman answered, clearly startled. "Your shawl is incredible, did you make it yourself?" She returned a compliment, polite as can be.
"Woven from sunlight and song," Baba Yaga agreed, nodding.
"Oh, literally sunlight and song? That's incredible! How did you learn to weave sunlight?"
"With skill and practice," Baba Yaga smiled, the expression unintentionally gruesome as she refolded her paper to face the woman. "You simply have to reach out and pull them together. I am sure you could learn, if you set your mind to it, dearie."
"Really? I figured that was only something that —ah— people like you could do," the young woman wondered, stumbling over how to address Baba Yaga. "Oh, I should have introduced myself— I'm Sally, my son Percy is over there."
"It is truly lovely to meet you, Sally," Baba Yaga replied, "I am Baba Yaga. You may call me Babka, if you let me teach you how to weave the sun."
Sally was taken aback, clear blue eyes widening as surprise, but it softened quickly into a smile. "I would love to learn from you, Babka."
Baba Yaga made a satisfied noise from the back of her throat, reaching out to cup Sally's young hands in her old, gnarled ones. "Then you will, dearie. And I imagine you'll learn well."