You know that splattery stuff on the ground that you can sometimes see faces in? That's what this is.

by PiercingSight

Fortune Teller

Fortune telling doesn't work the way people think it does. And that's the way we want to keep it.

Crystal balls, tarot cards, bones, horoscopes, and fortune cookies are just a show put on by scammers. People who take your money only to tell you something so vague and flexible as to apply to literally anything in your life. They'll say something like, "I sense struggle in your future, but it will pass" or some bull like that, and then proceed to charge you a fortune for your fortune.

Real fortune telling doesn't work like that. Except the charging a fortune part. That part is exactly the same.

Seeing the future doesn't require voodoo rituals, astrology, or anything like that. It's less performing some mystical ceremony to receive a revelation, and more thinking back to your memories of the current future. Just like remembering, only what you remember hasn't happened yet, and the farther it is from "now", the more difficult it is to remember.

The most frequent question we get from our clients is, "Can the future be changed?"

The answer is always yes. You see, we fortune tellers learned long ago that agency is unfortunately a real thing. I say unfortunately because every time someone uses agency to make a decision, it changes the future. Every time we're remembering a future, it mutates rapidly as we remember it. Most of the time, the changes are extremely subtle, and the general idea of the future stays pretty consistent. It's like watching a hundred versions of the same die roll in the span of a second, and then picking out which number came up the most. Thankfully, the number doesn't change too often, and even if it does, it usually returns to its original value.

Most people don't use agency. If they did, telling the future would be much more difficult than it already is. Because people tend to react to their circumstance instead of choosing their circumstances, this means, strangely, that indecisive people are more predictable than decisive people. And that's good for us.

The reason we call it Fortune Telling is because it is exactly that. Just like a bank teller, we give people large fortunes. The title is less about predicting the future, and more about the ability to hand someone the most lucrative path. This means we can charge a fortune for the fortunes we give. While that does limit our client base to the extremely wealthy, thankfully, the extremely wealthy are extremely interested in our work.

We go by the acronym of FTA's, or Fortune Telling Advisors. If anyone asks, though, we say we're Financial Trade Advisors. We put on the façade of stock trader. Dress nicely, have corporate offices, and make sure to keep a myriad of stock tracking applications open on our computer screens at all times. And thankfully, the stock trading world is so absurd that even actual traders can't tell the difference. This means we can keep most if not all of our clients in the dark about the true nature of our skill set.

"So why all the secrecy?" you may ask.

Well, here's the thing. The real world doesn't like people who can see the future. Most people think that either the world would accept fortune tellers and use them to better society, or shun them because seeing someone's future is invasive and creepy. Neither is true.

Being a fortune teller myself, I can tell you that if the world knew about fortune tellers, it wouldn't be long before we were all living in hiding, spending most of our time trying not to be assassinated by governments and businesses that feel we know to much. Even a predictable life on the run is still a life on the run. The Salem Witch Trials came about because some poor girl didn't know that her powers were unusual. In letting other people learn of her abilities she got herself and a lot of other people killed.

We'd rather that not happen again.

We do a lot to make sure that no one ever reveals us. If any one of us sees a future indicating we'd been found out, we find the source of the problem and eliminate it. This has allowed us to live in secrecy for thousands of years.

So, why am I telling you this?

To be frank, I'm tired of no one else knowing. It's uncomfortable living with people who know what you're going to say before you say it. I just want to live a normal comfortable life, to be able to complain about my problems to a stranger just like everyone else. It's oddly relaxing to let out my stresses like this.

And, well, I picked you because I know that you'll never have the opportunity to tell anyone else. You can probably smell the smoke by now.

Thanks for reading anyway.

Author's Note:

Not necessarily pony, but I may use this idea in a pony story.