"Mom, can we stop here? Pleaaaase!" The young Calem begged his mother with his cutest face. Their pet Furfrou, Frou, had the same big wide eyes and he got treats by doing that.
The fancy purple tent the traveling family was passing by caught the young man's eye. He'd heard people could learn the future in these places. Wondered why so few bothered - wouldn't everyone want to know how life would be? Before, when he asked his mother she just smiled and said she didn't know.
Grace, Calem's mother, made her mind up when she saw the nearby ice cream parlour. "Alright dear. You go on in - your father and I will be just over here." She handed him a 500 Poké bill and he walked in alone.
Children grow up so fast, she thought. "He'll be getting his first Pokémon soon," she said to his father. He grunted and slid over her ice cream.
Inside the mysterious velvet curtains Calem came face-to-face with an old woman. His peripheral vision was filled with warped lines of misshapen jars, each filled with different ingredients or items that he'd never have the time to learn all about. The woman's face stole his attention though, for she matched so accurately his imaginations of a witch that Calem was suddenly scared to be here. Regardless, he sat down in the chair across the table from the woman. A round pig Pokémon slept on a soft couch behind her, and dark pink something floated out of its head.
The old woman's back was hunched over like a twisted tree trunk, Calem realized. "So you seek fortune, do you?"
Quashing his fears, Calem answered. "Yes ma'am."
Suddenly she cackled, a spitting laugh that startled the boy and woke the pig behind her. The pink ooze sucked back in momentarily. "People don't call me ma'am anymore, son. I'm just an old maid."
Calem didn't know how to respond. He was uncomfortable. Making eye contact and forcing a smile, he placed the note on the table.
The woman's quick motions showed an agility unfitting her apparent age. Swishing her hands out sideways, dragging her dark shawl out dramatically, she spoke lightly. "You will look into my crystal. Inside will be a future only you will know." She swiftly brought her hands together. "Future Sight!"
The pig's eyes shone in a colour Calem could not see, but could feel. Before he understood what was happening he was focused on the dark opaque ball on the table. Purple shroud that seemed at first impenetrable cleared slowly, and soon a man became visible. His features were too dark to see, but speech was apparently not to be disguised.
"When everything is on the line, you can only rely on yourself. No one will fight for you without compromise, and compromised ideals are tearing us apart.
"Kalos used to have an enormous natural cavern. They say it was so big, all the fae in the world lived inside it peacefully. But millennia ago, ancestral trainers began to abduct them - only fairies could defeat the strongest Pokémon, even back then. It was a different world then, and when all the fairies had been chased from their homes it didn't take long for the rest of the world to adapt. These cave-dwelling creatures were never meant to be used in our battles, but human will is the dominant force on this planet. Now, that native home is empty, and all but the most mindless of creatures avoid it. Even now the other-worldly impression of the fae lingers there.
"Don't think that we are better off for having these aliens among us. For all the good ruining their society did us, we cannot escape some retribution…"
Calem was so absorbed into the anonymous stranger that he'd forgotten altogether where he was. The whiplash of leaving that dark room with the garbled voice, and waking up in this hard chair across from the old woman, caused him to blink owlishly. For a few seconds the man's lips still moved inside the crystal ball, before the purple shroud covered him again. It was the same shade as the velvet tent.
At some point in that dream - what else could it be called? - the woman had taken his note from the table. "I hope you learnt something, sonny. Run off to your parents now," she said.
Calem was tempted to ask about the crystal. How could it speak to him? But, he was too perturbed by the whole experience. He nodded, murmured thanks, and left out to the shining sun of daylight. They were moving to Vaniville Town tomorrow, and he didn't want to be left behind on their last day in the city.