Chapter 3: Value
Sunset Shimmer had known full well that there might be civilization on the other side of the portal. American fiat currency would be worth less than the paper it was printed on, but she might need money to get things done.
There hadn’t been a transcendental instant waiting beyond the mirror, stripping away the illusion of substance from reality and giving her a single experience that would empower her with magic forever.
She would have to work, have to read, and have to study. That’s fine. I knew it might happen. There was no chance to study magic on Earth, because no one took it seriously. But here everypony did. Here it was so routine that her question about it had seemed strange.
Mocha had directed her down a long main road, so densely packed with ponies that she didn’t feel like she stood out anymore. Unlike the calm, dignified processions of the upper city, these ponies moved more like she was used to—they rushed, they swore, they packed in tight and darted across streets at inopportune times. Granted, without automobiles there was far less chance of an accident. At worst, they’d just be running into each other.
The Gilded Stirrups shop was tucked away in the end of a narrow side-road, where the houses above packed in so close that the street was in perpetual shadow. The glass was covered in a layer of grime, and a bell chimed her entrance in an off-tune jingle. Sunset winced as it shut behind her, taking in the shop at a glance.
In some ways, she was amazed it even existed. For all that this place was an alien world governed by magical laws she didn’t understand yet, the culture was so similar. Mocha had known instantly what a pawn shop was, and even knew about this one. Now that she was here, the contents of the shelves didn’t surprise her in the least.
Lots of art, strange objects, family heirlooms, some behind glass and some just sitting out on the shelves. There were some useful objects too, though Sunset couldn’t have said what any of them did. Accessories for pony bodies, with lots of straps and elastic and few buttons or fasteners.
“Well look what we’ve got,” said a voice from behind the counter—exactly the sort of voice Sunset expected to hear in a shop like this. As she came out from around a shelf, she found exactly the sort of pony she’d been expecting too. Somehow dumpy, with an unshorn shadow on his face and beady eyes. He had a horn too, and seemed to be watching Sunset carefully. “Castoff from a noble house, I know that look. You’re selling.”
“I am,” Sunset admitted, stopping in front of the counter. Here were the shop’s most valuable items—mostly jewelry. Strangely the simple gold was under glass, while objects covered in precious stones were piled up on the shelves. Maybe they just have a way to make really convincing fakes.
“Alright,” the pony said. “We keep this simple. You don’t threaten me, you don’t wave your family name around like it’s your horn. I don’t care about the story, I don’t care about how long you’ve had it. I tell you what it’s worth, and you take it or leave it.”
“Sure,” Sunset said. Then she pulled off the robe. Her ears flattened in embarrassment as she did it, tail tucking between her legs. But she hadn’t seen anything like this on the street, and she had seen plenty of ponies not wearing anything at all. It’s fine, it’s just animal parts. It’s not really me.
She settled the robe on the counter in front of him. “How much for this?”
“Hmm…” The pony glanced to one side, and something shot across the room towards him. Sunset squealed in surprise, retreating a step and staring in horror. A jeweler’s glass seemed to have come to life, glowing faintly as it settled in front of the pony’s eye. At least until he saw.
It seemed almost as though the pony were holding it with an invisible hand. The glass moved out of the way, and his eyes narrowed. “You okay, miss? I don’t give discounts for crazy. Or drunk. You don’t feel well, you shouldn’t sell. Simple as that.”
“Shouldn’t…” Sunset couldn’t take her eyes from the glass. I can ask when it’s over, it’s fine. Don’t make him think you’re crazy now. “I’m fine, sorry. I thought for a minute I had… forgotten something! That I wanted to sell… in the upper city. I thought I was going to have to go back for it.”
“Riiiiight.” He looked away from her, back at the cloak on the counter. “Intricate stitching… double crossweave… this is silver thread. How’d it get so dirty?”
“Trip over,” Sunset muttered. “Didn’t go… quite the way I planned.”
“Restoration is expensive… I’d have to pay for it on a piece like this. How about… five hundred bits?”
“I…” Sunset hesitated. What the hell was a “bit”? In retrospect I probably should’ve asked Mocha about their money. “I’m not sure. I could get twice that in the upper city. Maybe I should take it up there.”
“A thousand!” Maybe this pony thought he was being sly, but she knew the sound of desperation anywhere. The number was meaningless to her, but the need wasn’t.
“Fifteen hundred.”
“Fine!” He snatched it off the glass, before Sunset could so much as open her mouth. “Deal. Fifteen hundred. Is that it?”
“No, uh… no. Hold on.”
Sunset couldn’t actually reach into the saddlebags. While settling them on her back that way made them feel almost weightless, they were also quite inconvenient. Sunset winced, gritted her teeth, and wiggled the saddlebags forward until they came off on the ground in front of her.
“You’re, uh… not just going to give me what you have? You don’t have to… whatever.”
Once they were in front of her, Sunset could open the flaps with her mouth, and look inside. She scooped the contents up onto the counter one at a time.
It was jewelry—several thousand dollars’ worth. Sunset had brought the most valuable stuff she could grab, covered with precious stones. Curiously, the metal seemed to have changed just as much as she had. The necklaces had widened enough that she could probably slide them down over her pony head. The rings looked like they were made for hooves now, or maybe with a slightly conical shape for a horn.
Sunset settled it all onto the counter between them. If a stupid cloak was worth fifteen hundred, all this must be.
“Hmm. I’ll give you… five hundred for the lot. Rubies, diamonds… this is barely worth the effort to flip.”
“What?” Sunset’s mouth hung open. “You just gave me fifteen hundred for a cloak. This is…”
“You’re new at this,” he said. “Look, I don’t care about the sentimental value. This is mostly gemstones by weight. There can’t be more than… a hundred grams of gold. I’ll be generous, seven hundred. Take it, before I change my mind.”
Where before he had sounded desperate, now the pony was stern. Sunset could hear no deeper undertones—either he’d suddenly started caring about hiding it from her, or he just didn’t care about the jewelry. Maybe I should’ve robbed a thrift store. Not that it mattered either way. They wouldn’t be finding her in here.
“Alright,” Sunset said. “Fine. Deal.”
The pony swept it all into a bin, then walked over to a safe. He fumbled with it for a moment, then the second miracle of the day. A little pouch flew through the air all on its own, landing on the glass counter right in front of Sunset. A pair of heavy-looking coins slid inside. “Two thousand…”
Then came a much larger pouch, landing on the counter in front of her with a metallic thump. “Two hundred. Now get out, before I change my mind.”
“How did you…” There was no mistaking it—this pony was moving objects with his mind! “How are you doing that?”
“Doing what?” The safe smacked closed all on its own, and he turned to glare down at her again. “If you’re setting up some kind of insanity thing, forget it. All sales final.”
Sunset tucked the money away in her saddlebags, which were now far emptier than they were before. Just a few basic survival supplies in there now, and a hard plastic box on one side. I can’t believe I didn’t think to bring a change of clothes.
“Nothing like that…” Sunset slid the saddlebags back on again, going a little faster on her second time. She could barely even feel the weight of them now. “The way you’re moving things… how are you… how did you do that?”
“You’re trying an insanity thing.” The pony lifted a hoof, pointing at the door. It opened of its own accord, bell ringing. “I paid you good bits, filly. Now, leave.”
She left.
Sunset didn’t have to go far after her first stop. With significantly lighter bags and significantly heavier conscience after what she’d done before leaving Earth, she went out on the first stop to conceal her identity: a hair salon. Yes, the magical pony country had them—and in this part of the city, they were staffed by the sort of person who did their job without paying much attention. Sunset never would’ve dreamed of patronizing a store like this on Earth, or else emerge with split ends and hair wrong in every way.
But just now, she needed it to be as unrecognizable as possible. “Can you do color?” she asked. The first store she tried couldn’t, but they happily pointed her towards one that could, soon as she left a few bits on the counter to loosen their memories. A brief trip down a few more shady alleys, avoiding anything that even sounded like the clink of that metallic guard armor, and she found a salon. She cut her mane short, in something a human might call a boyish pixie cut, dyed midnight blue with a little stripe. It felt unnatural, maybe unfaithful—but that didn’t matter now.
It’s okay, it’ll grow back. I can’t let them catch me. If they did, Sunset somehow knew what would happen next. They would lock her up in prison until the portal opened again in a few years, then banish her. She couldn’t take that risk—Sunset couldn’t return to Earth until she had taken every power this world had to offer for herself.
That bit of disguise helped, but there was nothing she could do about the mark on her flank. The salon had laughed at the suggestion that she could color her whole coat, and seemed genuinely disgusted with her when she suggested covering up the thing they called a “cutie mark.” So she abandoned that plan, found a store that sold clothing, and searched for anything she could use to conceal her identity.
Even Sunset’s embarrassment at now having a much shorter tail, revealing everything about her body to anyone who wanted to look—was secondary to her survival instinct. But when the adrenaline finally ran out…
But for all they could make a city beautiful, these ponies had never heard of jeans, and what little clothing they did have rarely did anything for either her modesty or stealth. But eventually she found something—a skirt in similar shade to her new hair, that would cover up the mark on her flank. It wouldn’t do much if someone was standing right behind her, but… priorities. She could worry about that once she found her way out of Canterlot.
Sunset about had a heart attack on her way out of the used clothing store, as a squad of burly-looking guards in gold armor passed right in front of her. Sunset watched them with horror, frozen and unable to move, not daring to try and run. They glanced once at her, but no eyes lingered.
They were putting up posters. Sunset waited until they had turned the corner, before approaching the one they’d pasted to a dirty brick wall.
Wanted
For crimes against the Crown
Court Wizard, Sunset Shimmer
Reward for information that
leads to capture: 10,000 bits
There in the center of the poster was a near-perfect image of her head in profile, along with her “cutie mark” beside it. Both were perfect in every detail, or at least they would’ve been before she changed her hair.
I don’t understand—they know my name? Had she been watched somehow? Maybe the room she’d arrived in had been full of cameras. Or worse, maybe this place had agents on the other side. Maybe they’d known about her desire to explore beyond the portal, and had been waiting for her this entire time.
It doesn’t make sense. I didn’t do that much! She had broken an old stairwell, and stolen a piece of clothes. Was that really worth putting up wanted posters and filling the city with soldiers? Soldiers that… weren’t even competent enough to tell she was the same person, once she dressed a little differently and changed her hair.
I shouldn’t get overconfident. I need to get out of here. The ponies didn’t seem to have some of the basics of modern life. No one she’d asked knew what a “phone” was, and they seemed to think that it was normal for light to flicker. Maybe if she got far enough from this city, they wouldn’t have heard of her. I need a new name to go with this new face. And maybe a tattoo artist for the cutie mark.
Sunset checked to see if anyone was looking, then ripped the poster off the wall with her mouth. She tucked it away quickly, into the ample extra space left by the jewelry she wouldn’t be carrying around anymore.
But now she had another problem: how to escape the city? Canterlot in this world was a cliffside settlement, with no connection to the valley below that she could see.
Sunset found her way to the railing on the lower level, where she hoped she might get a better view. Maybe there would be more gondolas, all the way to the valley floor below.
Sunset stared off the stone railing, admiring the view. The sheer stone side of the mountain stretched away into the blue, so far that she began to feel light-headed. There was no ramp down the mountain, no switchback road. Yet when she looked to one side, there she saw something. There was a bridge there, and thin metal tracks running along either side. Even as she watched, a little railcar came churning down, leaving a trail of white smoke as it went and whistling faintly.
My god, that’s adorable. There’s little hearts on the side.
Sunset could only get a general idea of where the train was—but she could walk that way, see what she found.
She didn’t run, that would only draw attention to herself. She hurried through the city, weaving between charming little shops and overcrowded tenement buildings. Here in the lower city there were street-vendors, and she bought lunch from one—something called “hay fries.” They were just what her stomach was craving—something greasy and delicious. She didn’t ask questions about the “hay.”
But as much as it was probably the smart thing, Sunset couldn’t just march right out of the city and never look back. She had come through the portal for a reason, and reminders of that reason were hard to ignore.
“Two Bit Books,” said the sign, an old-fashioned wooden one with faded lettering. Inside was exactly the sort of place Sunset imagined would sell spellbooks, with rickety shelves leaning overhead and lots of tomes that looked painful to lift.
A little bell chimed as she walked in, and Sunset found herself surrounded by the charming feeling of a used book store. There were a few ponies reading in comfortable chairs, or perusing the shelves.
Sunset ignored all of them, searching for someone who looked like they worked there. “Excuse me…” she muttered, to a mousey little mare putting books on the shelf from a metal cart. “Can you help me find something?”
“Oh, uh… sure.” She blushed, adjusting her glasses and looking up at Sunset. She seemed barely old enough to be working here—but what did Sunset know about child labor laws in horse land? I don’t know she’s a kid. I’m projecting. “What can I help you with?”
“I’m looking for… magic,” Sunset said. “I don’t know what you’d call it… maybe… opening the chakras, taking the oath, pacts with the Vanir… a spellbook?”
The pony’s eyes widened, and she took a step back. “That’s, uh… that’s a bit broad. Every book in here is about magic. We have lots of spellbooks. I don’t know what that other stuff means.”
“Hmm… maybe… the fundamentals? What’s the first spellbook that a wizard would study? And the second, and the third…”
“Like… in magical kindergarten? Are you looking for textbooks?”
“Sure! Magical kindergarten. That sounds about right.” She could feel the pony’s uncomfortable eyes on her, and she added, “For my, uh… little sister.”
“Oh, okay. We have used textbooks, over there.” She pointed. “Look for the bound volume. Starswirl’s Spellcasting Basics. It’s cheaper when you get the whole set.”
Sunset found the indicated books, and her eyebrows went up as she examined the image on the cover. The books were printed with oversized lettering on thick paper, with exaggerated images of ponies on the cover engaged in incredible feats. They moved objects around, juggled, or blasted beams of light from their horns. The pages were well worn from between the covers, as though many children had passed the books between them. Sunset selected another book from the bargain bin, paid, then slipped back out onto the street before any of the ponies could realize just how strangely she was acting.
It’s somewhere to get started. Now I’ll be able to study on the train.
She didn’t make it to the train.
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One Flash Sentry, coming up.
Well, that last line is a might ominous...
Sodding cliffhangers, they get you every time! And Sunset needs to stop leading with her assumptions. Less talking and more observing, yes?
Yep Sunset, magic in this Canterlot is really mundane to the people in it.
Also I like how she's not just going 'Eh, so I'm naked, I'll get over it, I'm a horse now'. She's constantly and consistently bothered by it.
Poor Sunset. She's so invested in the concept of hard-earned ritualistic magic that she can't recognize casual telekinesis for what it is. At least no one's going to mistake her for a court wizard... though there's no guarantee how Mocha will react to the wanted posters.
And if that cloak belonged to who I think it did... Oh, Sunny, you are in deep crap there.
But first, there's the interruption en route to the train.
I'm curious.
Are you posting through a backlog of chapters for now, because I'm confused on how the story is said to update weekly.
I get the feeling that this sunset may end up being ponyvilles new librarian by the time twilight gets her cutie mark
Your counterpart got you into some deep shit, bacon human.
9587544
Remember all the expensive jewelry human!Sunset brought with her? Something tells me Celestia's former protégé is going to have just as much trouble with the law.
A distraction? Wonder who or what it could be?
Also, haven't you figured it out by now, Sunset? You've swapped places with your counterpart from this world. And she's just as much a criminal as you are.
9587441
Curious who do you think the cloak belonged to?
9587664
Ironic no?
9587810
I'm going to assume that he's referring to the cloak matching the description of one belonging to a 'Great and Powerful Trixie'. Which is what I thought at first too, up until Sunset pulled the hood over her head. I don't remember Trixie's cloak having a hood.
How would that work?.
9587887
Fiat currency means the money is worth what it says it's worth because the government says so, even if it's made of paper. It's a relatively new concept historically speaking. Before fiat currency individual coins had different values depending on metal purity and what they weighed, even if they were the same type of coin. Consistent metal purity and coin weight weren't a thing in the past, especially when people regularly shaved the edges off their coins and melted down the shavings for profit. Milled edges on coins are to prevent this very thing.
9587903
Derp, thanks. I thought it was a typo.
Dun dun duuuuuhhn!
You can do et Sunny! In fact your counterpart is probably having a lot more difficulty than you do atm.
9587473
Yes, this is normal for a new Starscribe story. It's normally daily for about a week and then weekly until done.
Don't you dare end a chapter like that. Now I won't be able to sleep.
Loving the story so far
9587335
*mite
9587903
Well, for a while, U.S. currency was backed by silver and/or gold. You could actually take in your paper bills and tell them you wanted the metal they were backed by, and you'd get it. But then the government decided that they wanted to be able to print up as much money as they felt like without actually having to buy the metals to back it with, so they quit doing that.
Arbitrary silver-related funfact: The ruby slippers in Wizard of Oz were silver shoes in the original book, they changed them to ruby in the movie to show off their fancy Technicolor film.
9587887 Most currency is currently fiat.
Currencies usually start out by being backed by a reserve of something, such as gold. The coins may even contain it's value in gold or silver.
But paper money is a promissory note by a central bank or other issuer to give you as much gold or silver or whatever as that note is worth.
However, this usually leads to fractional reserve banking, where the issuer starts putting out extra currency that they don't have the reserves to cover if everyone handed their currency in. It's usually backed by intangibles such as the interest from loans or mortgages, or in the case of a government backed bank, future tax revenues. All very well, as long as it stays honest.
But it's so easy to keep printing money and saying there are intangibles to cover it. That is fiat currency, money that only works because everyone agrees it is worth something.
9588321
Easier trick: "its" is a possessive pronoun, like "hers" and "his", and you don't put apostrophes on those. "It's" is a contraction, and you ALWAYS put apostrophes on those.
9588337
Currencies usually start out by being the valuable thing in the first place.
It starts with a commodity that has intrinsic value. The word 'salary' originates from salt as a method of payment, as does the phrase 'worth their salt'.
Reality: *heavy implications that magic is commonplace and asking about it is incredibly stupid*
Sunset: "How am magic do?"
Reality: *more than once, implies that somehow Sunset is already known here*
Sunset: "How does knowing name??"
Reality: *continuously makes Sunset look stupid for trying to apply weird human concepts to magic*
Sunset: "Where do keep chakra book???"
(Ok, I'll stop, but seriously Sunset is such a dork)
RIP
9588337
9587903
Having payed little attention to economics, I never heard of the term before.
So this is interesting. Where is pony Sunset Shimmer? In the show, Celestia knew that she fled through the portal. Why are they looking for her in Equestria?
They know who Sunset is, Sunset still has her relationship with Celestia, and they know that "Sunset" took stuff and ran. Where is pony Sunset Shimmer?
Either:
* Human Sunset just happened to enter Equestria at the exact same time that pony Sunset went to Earth, and Celestia has no idea. She thinks that her Sunset stole stuff and ran away...and is unwilling to simply let her go.
or
* Pony Sunset is still at the castle, Celestia knows that her Sunset is not the one that ran off, and they've correctly identified that they have a duplicate. And because everybody knows Sunset Shimmer, pony Sunset is imply laying low for a while, and they're putting up wanted posters to capture what they know isn't the original without letting the general population know that there's a duplicate.
Walks through canterlot, a primarily unicorn city, and doesn't notice what has to be dozens of casual magic usage. Also doesn't think to ask about 'magic for beginners' right off the bat. Doesn't think about unicorns, a magical creature of legend with innate magic, can use magic innately.
I get where we're going here, I just think there may be a few turns taken that shouldn't have been.
9588748
I'll go out on a limb and predict that it is the first scenario. Also, I seem to remember there being a mention of another Sunset travelling the other way to the human world during the first chapter's portal scene, so I'm counting that as evidence to back my prediction.
9588816
I think what's interesting here is that in this AU telekinesis doesn't appear to produce visible light, otherwise it should be pretty straightforward for Sunset to associate the floating objects with the glow of the shop owner's horn.
9588857
Hmm, found it:
I missed that on first read. So yes, looks like the first scenario. Celestia thinks human Sunset is pony Sunset, and doesn't realize the portal was used. And the cloak is apparently significant enough that she's unwilling to simply allow Sunset to leave with it. But it's now at some random pawnshop in Canterlot and Sunset (probably) soon won't be.
9588308
I think it's a bit more than *just* a mite obvious, in fact I think it just might be mighty obvious.
...
.....
.... Because she took a hot air balloon off the mountain instead!
9588992
9588414 I don't count barter as a currency. But yes, that is the stage before a set medium of exchange,
all of these theories about Sunset
What's more important: Trixie paid a king's ransom for that cloak of hers
9588319
You may already know this, but it's worth pointing out that the silver slippers and yellow brick road were references to the silver and gold currency standards. The whole thing had political angles: the cowardly lion was the first President Roosevelt, etc.
9588337
I'm not clear on where you differentiate between money that is "backed" by something that doesn't exist (future tax revenues) and money that only has worth because people agree it does. I mean, the taxes will only come in if people agree to pay.
9589129
I wasn't talking about barter.
The key difference between barter and currency is the use of a common medium of exchange.
With barter, you trade what you have directly for what you need. This requires that the relative value each person has for each item being traded be addressed directly, and trades can't really be evaluated relative to other trades.
With currency you trade something of common value for what you need. In the example I used, salt was a medium of exchange. You don't need to know how many chickens a pig is worth, because the value of a chicken and the value of a pig can each be expressed as quantities of salt. Even if you don't need the salt, you use it in trade because it's easier for you to judge how fair a deal is if you're using a consistent measure of value.
It's also a lot easier to carry around the value of a pig via a bag of salt than it is to carry around a live pig.
9589161
Yep. And the Emerald City and its illusions were references to the fiat greenbacks, IIRC.
9587810
9587877
She found the cloak in storage in an abandoned part of the castle. So I say it's probably one of Luna's.
9588979
It seems far more likely that Pony Sunset just went on the lam after her falling out with Celestia and she's wanted for those unspecified crimes than for stealing a cloak. We don't know what sort of fight led to Sunset running away.
9587441
There's no description of bells so I doubt it belonged to Star Swirl
Hm, so there's only one other freshman in Canterlot High School? Sounds lonely... I guess I can't blame Sunset for going to Equestria!
Oh I'm really enjoying this story so far!! Although I would enjoy a bit more description of sunsets sorroundings. Keep up the excellant work!!
9587441
I can picture Pony Sunset, if she is on Earth, reacting the same way to a cell phone.
"These apes have no magic, yet they can communicate across long distance?"
Strangeness is in the eye of beholder.
9589161
If someone disagrees enough to downvote, I think they ought to tell me why (or what!) they think I'm wrong about... but apparently someone out there disagrees.
Or maybe they're mad at me for 119-year-old spoilers.
While I'm sure there are stories about Pony!Sunset adjusting to Earth, I'm really liking this tale of her counterpart's trip to Equestria.
I'd imagine Sunset-P had a much tougher time adjusting than Sunset-H for one reason in particular: While it'd be merely unusual for a pony to be clothed all the time, it'd be illegal for a human to run around naked. The first time Sunset-P stripped in public, she'd first be arrested for public indecency, then taken to the psych ward for insisting, "That's the way everypony should be."
Wow, this is one of those stories that I didn't know I wanted. I've always been curious about what happened to human sunset, but most interpretations are either dark and depressing, boring, or not very true to her original character before being reformed. This on the other hand is perfect and utterly fantastic. I am invested, please continue!
Glad I found this. Great story so far!
9590683
You can even say that "backed" currencies are still fiat.
Gold and silver are only valuable because we agree that they are. Thus backing a currency with it only removes the fiat-ness by one step.