AN~ Same concept, but I took out the first person because it was not at all believable. 6
Most people who've met Baba Yaga- or talked to someone who's met her- have the impression that she's a completely belligerent self-serving person with no interests outside of her soap operas; someone who'll kill you if you have the audacity to sneeze in her presence. And they're right.
Mostly.
She has one soft spot, see. She used to have more, but life wore down on her as it does on everyone, and it's only the first that remains; the strongest: animals. She loves them, no matter how big or small. They can be furry or feathery or covered in pebbled skin or smooth and slimy or scaled, and she'll love them all, as long as they're not the odd sort of talking animals Ferryport Landing has in spades, the ones who like to dress up in human glamours and pretend to be something they think is better than what they were born as.
She's not a vegan, or even a vegetarian, though she says she is. Eating human flesh sort of disqualifies you from those monikers, apparently. But animals have always been safe around her in ways humans have never been and will never be. And anything that's a little bit animal she can't bring herself to kill. She makes glamours for the ones who want to look human so they can have a house, and when angry little girls foolishly turn themselves into frogs in front of her, she doesn't squish them, just scares them.
Growing up was hard, of course. She and her sisters survived on scraps and the little bit of magic their parents had taught them before they died. They were born in Russia, though it was so long ago that it wasn't called Russia then. She had another name then, one nobody remembers these days except perhaps her sisters. She wouldn't know; her sisters disappeared centuries ago. They all had their gifts, and made themselves a little coven. The eldest, the crone, had a talent for disguise and shapeshifting. The middle sister could convince anyone to do anything. And Baba Yaga? She talked to the animals. Sometimes, in those days, they had to eat them to live. Most times she could keep that from happening.
When they grew up, got enough magic under their skins that they'd live forever, grew old anyway, they dissolved their coven. She'd long ago stopped being a true innocent. So they went their separate ways. Her sisters performed great acts. Sometimes, when they were feeling generous, they'd help someone on a quest- for a price, of course. She built herself a hybrids out of dying animals and people who'd failed her tests: her guardians. It was a good life.
Then that whole nasty business with humans turning against magic happened, and when someone tried to set her house on fire she decided she might as well move to this new world with Wilhelm and his friends. Her sisters didn't go, which was all well with her. There would be enough witches in this town without people challenging her over who was the most powerful.
The barrier fiasco happened, and people tried to hurt her beautiful chicken house again. She scared them out of it, and for centuries she was left alone. Only a frog-shaped girl who was just as angry as she was could change things up.
People, after all, are not like animals. They always cause change.