For forty years, Pippa was the steady hand of Oakhaven, a midwife who could coax a stubborn babe into the world with a bawdy joke and a warm compress. Her life changed during a difficult winter delivery under a rare triple-conjunction of planets. As she washed her hands in a basin of water, the reflection of the night sky swirled into the shape of the newborn’s circulatory system. In that crystalline moment, Pippa realized the universe wasn't a cold void; it was a living, breathing kitchen where the gods were merely baking the next batch of reality.
She left her cottage the next morning, carrying only her sourdough starter and her grandmother’s silver rolling pin. She began to see the patterns of the stars in the way flour settled on a table and the movements of the tides in the rising of dough. Pippa now wanders the trade roads, convinced that the 'Cosmic Soufflé' is currently in danger of collapsing. She mends the world’s 'burnt crusts'—whether that’s a broken limb or a rift in the weave—with the same practical, no-nonsense tenderness she once used to bring life into the world.