Chapter Text
Once upon a time in the town of Zephra, there lived a young girl named Keyleth. Keyleth was eight years, two months, six days, four hours, thirteen minutes and 29 seconds old when she first discovered she was special. She was always told she was special, and had long since suspected it was true, but this was the first instance of real tangible proof the world had offered her.
She was playing in the hills with her cat, Minxie, when the poor animal had darted into the road and was promptly hit by a semi truck. Keyleth felt numb as she approached her loyal pet on the otherwise empty road. She looked like she was only sleeping. Keyleth reached out a hand, fighting back tears. As her fingertip brushed Minxie's cheek, something happened. It was like being shocked with static electricity, but there was no sharp pop. It was only the feeling of electricity running down her arm until it reached the tips of her fingers and Minxie, for just the briefest moment, lit up as though backlit by the sun.
A moment later, Minxie lifted her head and darted the rest of the way across the street back towards home. Torn between shock and exhilaration, Keyleth followed. If she had stayed 60 seconds longer, she might have noticed the raven falling from a nearby tree.
Keyleth was distracted all afternoon. Normally, she loved helping her mother bake. But today she only sat at the kitchen table, eating the spare strawberries that hadn't fit in the summer pie. Minxie was stretched out on top of the refrigerator, licking her paw and apparently unconcerned with the fact that she had been dead only two hours before. Her mother washed the dishes and cleaned up after the process of making the pie as it baked, unaware that her daughter's young mind was reeling with questions if life, death, and eternal existence.
At two minutes until the pie was finished, a blood clot was loosened and made its way to Keyleth's mother's brain, killing her instantly. Keyleth looked up at last as her mother fell to the floor, flat on her back. She got to her feet and knelt down on the linoleum cautiously. Just like Minxie, her mother looked like she was sleeping. Sleeping fully dressed in the floor of the kitchen. Well, it had helped once, hadn't it?
Again, that static electric feeling, the warm light, and her mother blinked her eyes open.
"Must have slipped! Clumsy. Did the timer go off?"
It would. Sixty seconds after Keyleth's finger touched her cheek. After which the screams of the woman across the street startled them both as her toddler collapsed and stopped breathing. Because nothing can be given without something else being taken away.
But there was still one lesson left to learn, and it would come as a terrible shock. As her mother tucked her into bed, she leaned in and kissed Keyleth's forehead. It was the same feeling in reverse. A quick glow of cool light, then a zap in reverse, right from her head back down to her heart.
And once more, her mother was on the floor, this time unable to be revived by Keyleth, her father, or anyone else.
~
It was twelve years, one week, four days nine hours, two minutes and thirty seconds later, hitherto referred to as, now. The girl with the magic, life-restoring touch was now The Pie Maker. She part-owned the restaurant known as the Pie Hole. She used her powers to revive rotten fruit, making the most delicious pies that she could not eat, lest the fruit rot again. She only occasionally raised the dead, and never for longer than 60 seconds. Until she did.