The woman who asked for everything and the boy who asked for nothing

There are several versions of how the granter came to this world, and many of them are more or less the same. This one is quite different from the others:

It all started with a woman, born in a world without walls, wind, predators or thieves.
A little girl with a loving family, safely playing with friends of all ages in the dark alleys of a city where there were no words for assault, crime, murder or evil. They had a few words that meant "death", tough. Half of them could also be translated as "old", "aging" or "decay".
She didn't thought much about those things as she grew up into a happy woman who loved her family, because what was there to think? They had the same adage that so many civilizations from every world have: "You live, until you don't".
So she lived.
Then, something or someone distracted her when she was giving a bath to one of her nieces. She wasn't precisely living after that. She was mourning, hating herself and trying to make sense of what had happened; and for some reason the shards of what she had lost, took form in her world instead of this one. Magical baths for toddlers, with a curse that made it impossible for people to get distracted; a well that held an infinite supply of the favorite juice of her niece, and maybe a puppy (that could have been a regular stray).
This caught the curiosity of a granter, or maybe a door connecting both worlds was opened by her grief. Either way, this guy wasn't the kind you want to meet. He was one of those tricksters... no, not a trickster, he was evil. Maybe he was upset because he thought there was somebody else granting wishes, maybe he was just trying to figure out what had happened. Either way, he offered the woman a wish. He could even bring her niece back from death, he said.
So many have fell for that trick, and he always found it entertaining. But he expected this woman to have a chance to deal with the results of welcoming an undead in her home, and then he would see what she could really do.
He always seemed understanding and trustworthy at first, and she was as heartbroken as all those he had toyed with before. But she had grown in a place where the dead were thought to start again in another place and time. She didn't want to bother the child's new life just because she was suffering. How could she know if her niece was better getting back her previous life?
She couldn't ask for two wishes, or put conditions to one. So she asked for the magic to do all those things herself, she asked for the power of the granters, without the restrictions because she didn't know what those could be and how they would affect what she wanted to do.
That's not how granter's abilities work, but he didn't tell her that.
He let the wish go as far as it could and that turn her into a granter... with more restrictions that most of her predecessors had had. On the bright side, the evil granter lost her power soon after this—maybe because now it was hers, maybe because of other unknown reasons—and she did a better job than he had, even when she got bitter as she dealt with selfish people and their selfish wishes.
As time went by, she learned the violent words that almost every other world had. She would snap at people even before they did something wrong, and would ask great personal sacrifices in exchange for the few wishes she granted.
Bitterness became boredom. She was tired of dealing with people who came here asking for treasures that belonged to others and stuff they didn't need—specially those who didn't know how to take a negative answer.
It was then when she was introduced to an outsider who had nothing but money and objects.
The boy was thankful for those vane things. He called them "opportunities" and more than once he admitted that most of the time he didn't know how to use them to get what he really needed.
When they first met, he had so many wishes, that he couldn't pick one to ask. They spent so long together as he tried to decide, that they became friends. She decided to grant him more than one wish, but he had decided to ask for none. He said that the more he thought about it, the more he understood that it would feel strange to get something "just like that". He was already taking advantage of his parents resources, and a wish would feel like that but worse: like wearing something that didn't belong to him.
He couldn't ask for anything, except maybe, her advice. She had a lot of experience after all.
But she couldn't help thinking that her area of expertise, at this point, was granting wishes. It wasn't the kind of advice he needed or wanted, but she could have given it anyway.
For the first time since getting her power, she wished for something for herself; something that she wouldn't grant or ask for, something she wouldn't even work for, because it wasn't right. She wished to just pass her burden to the boy that was able to forgive everything and to be an optimist no matter how lonely, hurt and scared he could feel.
She didn't plan to give her the burden. He didn't plan to get the power.
But when does anything go according to the plan?

Historical basis

I like this story more than others, because I know for sure that the granter wasn't summoned here. Even he doesn't know exactly how, but he found his way here. Maybe those who are meant to become granters always make the worlds blend a little.
However, everyone knows that the The snappish mage disappeared way before his arrival. So this legend has to be wrong, even if only by confusing the identity of the previous granter.
It will continue to be a mystery, I suppose, because there is no records prior to the company. Only a few people know who was the granter that passed the role to the current one, and none of them ever tells who it was.

Alternative Versions

Some storytellers who like to see themselves as historians will tell you that "if we compare this story with the timelime" or "according to the description of the people involved", the woman of the story could be the mourning woman that is mentioned in myths of several worlds, or maybe even Lady Death. All nonsense, of course.
Others involve a third character in the legend, wish would mean that the granter's father (or grandfather) was the one who met the Snappish Mage, and made a deal with her that ended with his descendant becoming her successor. What part of "he didn't ask for any wish" they didn't get?

Related people

The Snappish Mage

---

Article Pending