Niná Fink

> "I'm the one Sámi kid in town I know about, it would be obvious from my Määccaǩ if anyone recognized it. I wish it was the other kind of secret identity, the kind where there's more than one of it in places."
>
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## Niná Fink

### Relatives

Delle Gauriloff (mother), Bijáš Fink (father)

## Physical description

### Eye color

blue-grey, wide-set

Niná Fink is the child of Skolt Sámi diasporic parents. They know about her role as the current Baba Yaga and have mixed feelings about it. Delle and Bijáš would much rather she focus on her studies, and they hate how much space her superhero Määccaǩ takes up in the wash, but they know teens will be teens.

A lot of strain is placed on Niná to be the only representation for an indigenous group that most Americans know nothing about. The Russian-American residents of New Moscow might have an idea, but even then, representation is little to nothing. Tired of saying, "Like Balto", and explaining her art as Duodji, sometimes it's just too much and she wants to just up and quit, but when you're all you have you aren't allowed to.

Niná's parents are indigenous activists, artists, and all around admirable people that cast a long shadow over her. Even if they aren't world-renowned, she can't help but compare herself and her work to theirs. Deep down, she's just a kid who wants them to be proud of her. At the same time, she wants their honest feedback. She wants to grow and improve as an artist, but also to be loved as she is. It's hard to ask for both. Bijáš and Delle love what she's doing, but they want her to get better. They don't realize that telling her what's good is also key to fostering growth. You can't just weed a garden, you have to water it too.

Impostor syndrome is very real as a diaspora kid, as an Indigenous person reconnecting, and as a trans person. Even under this microscope, her role as Baba Yaga is a unique source of cultural pride, gender euphoria, and personal liberation. Her friends are amazing and hard not to compare herself to, but they never fail to lift her up and cherish her.

## Description

Niná is a tall, dark brown haired girl with a wide button nose, square face, and dense, pale brows. She has been on GAHT Estrogen through an implant since around her 16th birthday. Her hair is cropped midway to her shoulders in a blunt bob, slightly longer in front strands. When out of Määccaǩ, her typical clothes are a mid-thigh skirt at a high waist, opaque tights, sneakers or fitted boots, long-sleeved shirts, and chunky statement belts and earrings.

Niná's phone is a surprisingly old model in a thick flip-open, book-like leather case that also serves as a wallet. Unlike other cases of this form, Niná's case is handmade. She crafted it herself. The stitching, the colors, all her. The lock screen is her family dog, a large and fluffy mutt. The home screen is a photograph of one of her art pieces. The password is one of those ones where you swipe your finger in a certain pattern on a bunch of dots.

At home, Niná has a handmade leather bag, functional Duodji. It never comes to school with her. Something might happen to it. At the beginning of the story, she's too attached to it to let it live its purpose. She has yet to embrace the impermanence of all beauty, of life, of art, of all things. Instead, she takes her things to class in a canvas tote bag from some health food store her parents like. She doesn't trust the school water, carrying a thin metal bottle full of filtered water in her bag. Every surface of the bottle is covered in stickers that came free with camping things, travel stuff, and whatever else her parents have bought over the years and ones that were handed out free at queer functions.