1. Exchange Rates
Gold Rush felt that Cash-4-Gold exchanges had an unfair reputation, and not simply because he was the owner and proprietor of one. They were stereotyped as small, dingy little holes run by small, greedy men and women who would sell their own mothers for a quick buck. And yes, Gold Rush was small. And true, he may have never loaned a friend money in his life. But he hadn’t sold his mother, selling people was illegal, slavery, and that was unthinkable in this day and age! Besides, if he sold his mother then he’d have to find someone else to pay rent for that particular apartment, the one in the building where the tenants were always complaining about the washing machine being broken. They were the ones breaking it!
His musings on the nature of his profession – and his fiddling with a large gold ring that he wore around one pinky – were interrupted when the door to his small but clean shop opened. He looked up and immediately frowned at what he saw past the bulletproof glass. “No pets,” he said, jabbing a finger at the sign that said as much.
Two teenagers had entered, but they’d brought an orange-and-purple dog and what looked like a blue-and-yellow parrot or something with them, the dog sticking close to a the older of the two teens, a slight, blue-skinned girl dressed in a garish assortment of clothing that suggested color blindness, while the cockatoo or whatever was perched on that girl’s shoulder. Free of animals and full of smiles was a younger teen with pink skin and curly blue hair, wearing a frilly dress and looking like she had escaped from an old musical or something.
It was this younger girl who skipped up to the counter, curly hair bouncing under its bows. She was just tall enough to set her elbows on the countertop and smile a bright, toothy grin. “Golly, mister, I didn’t catch that!” She said. Her voice sounded far-away and tinny on the other side of the glass. “What’s all the glass for? Oh, my name is Cozy Glow – nice to meet you!”
Gold Rush didn’t want to be unfriendly to these kids. He loved kids, or at least he loved how their grandparents would give them golden trinkets to remember them by and they’d come to him to pawn them off for cash so they could buy video games or pogs or whatever. But pets, no. He did not like pets. They were money sinks, plain and simple, and they were by and large filthy. Plus he was allergic to dog fur. And probably feathers, feathers seemed like the sort of thing he’d be allergic to.
“I said no pets!” Gold Rush exclaimed, jabbing a finger at the dog and the parakeet or whatnot.
“I am not a pet!” The cockatoo – Gold Rush settled on cockatoo – exclaimed, flapping its wings. A talking cockatoo, Gold Rush had to admit that was cute. But rules were rules.
Cozy Glow, meanwhile, looked almost distraught. “But Smolder and Gallus are our very best friends! Right, Ocellus?”
The blue-skinned girl flinched at being addressed. “U-um…r-right.”
Gold Rush began to repeat his admonishment, but then Cozy lifted up a purse and emptied it out into the tray on her side of the glass. Coins about the size of a half-dollar, with a stylized B on one side and the image of a sun and moon on the other side. And suddenly Gold Rush was remembering three or four years ago, another young girl, this one with yellow-gold skin and fiery hair, and the single happiest day of his life
“How much for this?” She’d asked, and emptied a bag containing a hundred coins that looked very much like these ones. They were probably stolen. Gold Rush had no idea from where, and frankly he didn’t care. No way he was going to let the cops get between him and gold like that – not back then, and not today, either.
Gold Rush swallowed, looking back up as Ocellus came forward and put down coins of her own…and took some more that the cockatoo had been sitting on and the dog had concealed in her fur. He held very still while she did so, and then acted as nonchalant as possible while he worked the mechanism to transfer the coins from their side to his, and set about inspecting them. All hundred coins. The same as a few years ago with that Twilight Sparkle or whatever her name had been.
“Hmm,” he said, inspecting a coin with a magnifying glass and weighing it.
“Mm-hmm…” he continued, as he got to his chemical analysis kit and tested coins at random. Each coin was twenty-two karat gold, the remaining two karats made up of copper to increase the hardness.
“Ah-humm…” He was the picture of detached interest. He bit a coin. Bad for the teeth, but he did dent the mostly-gold coin the way it was supposed to.
Gold Rush drummed his fingers on his side of the counter. The math was intuitive. Twenty-two karat gold coins, each weighing about a third of an ounce. Each was worth about four-hundred seventy-seven dollars. There were a hundred coins. Nearly forty-eight thousand dollars was in front of him.
“I’ll give you…three thousand dollars,” he said at length in a very casual voice.
“Is that a lot?” Ocellus asked.
Gold Rush gave the most nonchalant shrug in the history of the world as he went for his cash box. However, Cozy Glow raised a hand and the cockatoo started flapping his wings. “Hang on a minute!” Cozy said, her red eyes locking on to Gold Rush’s own eyes. “That doesn’t seem like a lot.”
Gold Rush matched the stare. “Three thousand dollars doesn’t seem like a lot?” He asked. “Do you know how much ice cream you could buy with that?”
“No,” the dog said. Gold Rush started at that, peering over the counter and down at the small dog, a sheltie, from the looks of things. It looked back at him, scowling. “What?” It asked.
Gold Rush decided he was just going to power on through the fact that the dog was talking.
“I bet it’s a lot of ice cream!” Cozy said, shifting a little so that she was blocking Gold Rush’s view of the dog. “But I also bet that I could get a whole lot more ice cream if I took all this somewhere else!”
“Yeah,” the cockatoo said. “I saw another gold exchange place a few streets away. We definitely want to check out the competition before – ”
“Wait!” Gold Rush decided to just keep on powering thought the fact that the cockatoo was speaking coherent sentences as well. He drummed his fingers on the counter again, staring at the teens. “Maybe you go to the other place,” Gold Rush said. “But I’m guessing you’re new at this. And I’m guessing none of you have IDs. And I’m guessing that none of you know that any transaction over ten thousand bucks has to be reported to the NRD, with your personal information included.”
The two girls looked between each other – and the dog and the cockatoo, too. The cockatoo and Cozy Glow actually exchanged knowing smirks. “So you’re saying,” the cockatoo said, “that there’s more than ten thousand dollars there.”
He’d been trying to intimidate them, but overplayed. Damn his love of gold. “Not for you,” he said, though he did move the coins back over to their side of the bulletproof glass, tried to present himself as their only option. “Not without IDs.”
The group huddled together, talking to each other, Cozy making a few animated gestures before as one the four nodded, came back, and retrieved their coins…and then Cozy put down her twenty-five gold coins into the slot while the others stepped back. “Hi! I’m Cozy Glow. I want to exchange these coins, please!”
Well that was clever. Twenty-five of those coins would come in at only a little over ten thousand bucks, though Cozy probably didn’t know that. But she did think they were worth a lot, Gold Rush suspected. “A thousand bucks,” he said, which should have been more than enough for any kid. “But only ‘cause you’re cute.”
“Aw, thanks, mister!” Cozy’s eyes sparkled – and then her voice dropped an octave without her expression changing. “Eight thousand.”
“Fifteen hundred. I got a wife and kid to feed.” Some day he might, anyway.
“I wasn’t foaled yesterday, you know! Five thousand dollars.”
“Two thousand. Take it or leave it, kid, I’m not going any higher.” He put on his most stern glare. The kind he put on when hits tenants were late on rent.
Cozy Glow looked back easily, not flinching or wavering in the slightest, her red eyes taking in every detail of Gold Rush. Finally, her grin widened while her head tilted down a little, casting her eyes into the shadow of her brow and curly bangs. “Two thousand five hundred dollars,” she said, her voice dropping again, “or we go to the other place with everything I learned here.”
For a kid, she had a positively unsettling glare of her own. Still, it wasn’t like he wasn’t going to come out ahead on this – way ahead. He glanced to the other kid with whom he’d be doing a completely distinct and therefore perfectly legal transaction that didn’t require ID. And…the talking dog and the cockatoo that he was just accepting could talk because it made his life easier. And they weren’t people and didn’t need IDs to get money. Yeah, that was how the law worked, right?
“Deal,” he decided, opening his cash box up and beginning to count out bills. “And hey, kid, when you grow up, you come work for me, okay?”
Cozy Glow’s more innocent smile returned, and her voice pitched up again. “Golly, thanks, mister! But I’ve got things I wanna do when I grow up back home. Lots of things!”
About an hour earlier on a wonderful, sunny Saturday morning, the grounds near Canterlot High School were disturbed by a couple of high-pitched shrieks, originating from beside a certain statue that had once been enchanted by a reckless unicorn mage from another world.
“Am I a dog?” Smolder barked, spinning in place as she tried to look over herself. Her fur was thick, particularly around her shoulders; her snout was long; her tail was fluffy and wagging in annoyance; her ears were raised and pointed. And overall, she was tiny. Smaller than Spike, even! She tried to belch out smoke fire in anger, and failed utterly. “My fire! Where’s my fire?!”
“You think that’s bad? Look at me!” Gallus’ voice exclaimed. Smolder turned to look, and froze at the sight of him. He was hopping up and down, wings beating in rage – and smaller than even Smolder had become. Also distinctly avian, lacking any paws or fur or lion-like tail. Gallus spread his wings wide. “I’m a cockatoo! Why am I a cockatoo?!”
Smolder stared silently for a moment, eyes wide. “Heh,” she let out at length.
Gallus glared. “Don’t you – ”
“Hah…ha! Hahaha!”
“This isn’t funny, you scaly – furry – ”
It was too late. Smolder had fallen over, paws awkwardly clutching at her belly. “Hahahaha! Hah! You’re a…a…look at you!”
“Look at you!” Gallus countered, wings beating rapidly as he took to the air, claws on his tiny little bird feet reaching out and trying to scratch at Smolder. She batted at him with her paws, but he was surprisingly agile – and completely incapable of getting past her thick fur anyway.
“Oh wow,” Smolder laughed, grabbing Gallus from the air from where she lay. “Wow, okay, knowing I’m not worst off really helps.”
Gallus struggled out of Smolder’s grip, landing on her chest. If looks could banish creatures to the Moon, Gallus’ glare would have ploughed Smolder straight on through to its far side. “I bet this is Star Swirl’s fault somehow! He enchanted the mirrors, right?! So he turned me into a bird and you into even more of a b – ” Smolder growled, reminding Gallus that she still had sharp teeth even in this form. He hopped back, holding up his wings. “Okay, okay! Fine! I guess I should be happy that it happened to…all…of us…”
He’d trailed off when he finally looked away from Smolder. Smolder looked in the same direction. Ocellus, meanwhile, wilted when she saw two sets of eyes on her – neither set looked particularly happy at the fact that Ocellus looked perfectly normal. Quite ironic, given what she was. “Uh…um…” she said, falling back onto her haunches and grinning weakly while she tapped her forehooves together, looking down at the dragon-turned-sheltie and griffon-turned-bird. “M…maybe because I’m a changeling, the magic didn’t affect me?” Gallus and Smolder kept their glare up, and Ocellus wilted further. “I’m sorry…”
The sight of Ocellus looking so dejected spurred her friends into action. Smolder rolled back onto her legs – prompting Gallus to squawk as he took to the air to avoid being crushed – and was beside her first despite needing to figure out how to walk on four legs. “Sorry,” she said, putting a paw on one of Ocellus’ own legs. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, it’s not like you planned this,” Gallus noted, landing next to Smolder and looking up at the changeling. He let out a short laugh. “Plus, it’s gotta be fun being taller than us for a change…”
“Could have used a little warning, though,” Smolder said, turning to look at the fourth member of their little incursion. Cozy Glow had become the bipedal “human” creature that she had told them existed on the other side of the mirror, and seemed to be taking her change in better stride than Smolder or Gallus were. She was already standing on two legs, spinning around as she looked herself over, hands outstretched for balance.
Cozy noticed the look, and stopped her spin. “I’m sooo sorry, you guys!” She said, chewing on the knuckles of one hand and worrying the hem of a frilly dress she was now wearing with the other. “Counselor Starlight said that the mirror made her look like a human when she went through it – I assumed that applied to everycreature! Golly, I’m the worst…”
“N-no, it’s okay, you didn’t know!” Ocellus insisted, trotting over to her and smiling up at the now somewhat taller creature that Cozy had become. “B-but we should go back through now, right?” She looked back to Gallus and Smolder. “We’ve been through, a-and if you two aren’t even human then there’s no way we can learn about human magic – ”
“What? No way!” Gallus exclaimed, hopping into the air and hovering in front of Ocellus. “Look, me and Smolder really need to blow Headmare Twilight out of the water with this project if we wanna pass this semester.”
“Yeah, she wants a report on a race that isn’t attending the school, right?” Smolder asked, padding up to Ocellus as well, though she took a moment to glare at Gallus and the fact that he could still fly. “Well I haven’t seen any of these hoo-mon things at school.”
Cozy shifted. “Gee, though, if it’s just me, and I’m still getting used to being human, how much can we really learn about their magic? I only mentioned the portal in passing because I overheard Counselor Starlight talking to Trixie about it, I didn’t think you’d want to go through…”
Gallus and Smolder looked between each other, Gallus landing on the ground. As one, they shrugged. “It’ll be fine,” Gallus said with certainty.
“It’s not like he’s any more birdbrained than normal,” Smolder agreed.
“Exactly…wait, hey!” Gallus objected. Smolder only laughed more.
Ocellus bit her lip, looking between her friends. “And…you don’t think we’ll get in trouble for sneaking into Princess Twilight’s castle and using the portal?” Ocellus asked. “I’m pretty sure Thorax said something about ponies not liking creatures going into their homes uninvited…”
“If our report is good enough, Headmare Twilight won’t care,” Gallus said with certainty, him and Smolder both nodding. Ocellus still looked unsure, but Gallus took to the air – eliciting a jealous growl from Smolder – and hovered in front of her. “The balcony door was wide open anyway, practically an invitation to come in!” Ocellus had to admit that there was some degree of logic to that. “And we would have asked permission if anypony was home.”
“But the teachers are all off on that camping trip and Spike was off flying…who knows where. New wings.” Smolder noted. She glanced at her back and the lack of wings, prompting a whine which in turn had Ocellus reach out and pat her. The former dragon leaned into it, tail wagging a few times before she realized what was happening and scooted away from the affection. “No petting! I’m a dragon! My scales are like…” she blinked, looking at her fur that was definitely not scaly. Mirth at Gallus’ situation finally disappeared, and she growled. “Why am I a dog?!”
“Star Swirl was a jerk,” Gallus insisted.
“Is a jerk,” Smolder noted. “He’s still around.”
“Well, if anypony wants to go back, we can,” Cozy said, walking up to the statue and sticking her hand into its base to show that the portal there was still open. Through it, they could see that her hand had transformed back into a hoof, confirming that their current forms were only temporary. She withdrew her hand, looking back to the other three, or more specifically, Ocellus. “But…Smolder and Gallus really do need the help in class…golly, I’d hate for them to not pass when this place could be so cool for a report…”
Ocellus blinked at being put on the spot, her compound eyes seeing the pleading looks of Cozy, Gallus, and Smolder all at once – Smolder’s particularly effective at the moment. “O…okay, fine…” She said, rubbing her temples with both forehooves. “I can’t believe you talked me into this…oh, I guess I should be human too.” She focused her gaze on Cozy for a few moments, before blue fire washed over her and she took on a pink-haired, blue-skinned human form, taller and a little older-looking than Cozy but still slight in build like her true form was.
Cozy looked her over appraisingly. “Looks about right…” she intoned, one hand at her chin, “but I think you should have clothes. The portal made clothes for me, and Counselor Starlight mentioned that humans always wear clothes.”
Ocellus blinked, looking down at her naked bipedal body. “Oh, right. Um…I’ve never worn clothes before…” flashes of magic appeared over her body, creating shoes and socks, pants, an undershirt, an overshirt, a long jacket, a belt, a scarf, glasses, and a wide-brimmed hat, all of them in a rainbow of colors…if rainbows had zero sense of color coordination. “How’s this?”
“I think Professor Rarity would go blind,” Gallus drawled.
“It’s clothing, it’s fine,” Smolder said. “She looks like a normal human now.”
“Okay!” Cozy exclaimed. “Let’s go find out what this world has to offer!”
Miniature trains that didn’t require tracks, instead moving around on rubber wheels across stone streets. That was the biggest thing that the four visitors to this world noticed as they wandered. Most were big enough for four or five humans at a time, but one stopped at a marked area on the sidewalk was big enough for dozens of humans, a bus according to the sign. They’d tried to use it, but the bus’ pilot had asked for “exact change only”, and evidently bits weren’t exact enough. They’d each brought along a small allowance, but needed to convert it to the local currency. That had prompted a long trek to a Cash-4-Gold once they’d asked enough questions of the locals, although it at least gave them all practice walking (or in Gallus’ case, practice riding on Ocellus’ shoulder).
“Is this money made out of paper?” Ocellus asked as they left the Cash-4-Gold shop. She was holding one of the “hundred-dollar bills” in her hands, staring at the unfamiliar face on it, while the rest was stuffed into her fake clothing’s pockets. Smolder had given her money to Ocellus to hold on to since her current form lacked pockets, though she seemed unconvinced at the value of treasure that was flammable.
“Maybe paper’s really rare here,” Gallus suggested. Ocellus was also looking after his bills since he lacked pockets as well – which meant that Gallus was perched tightly on Ocellus’ shoulder and wasn’t going to be going anywhere anytime soon, since flammable or not there was clearly still value in it. “So what do humans spend money on?”
“Let’s find out!” Cozy exclaimed as they made their way to a bus stop, where a bus had just stopped. Quite sensibly named, at least. She marched on board and held out one of the hundred-dollar bills. “Take us to the place where humans – I mean, where we spend money, fellow human! Pretty please?”
The bus pilot stared at the hundred-dollar bill, then to Cozy, Ocellus, Gallus, and Smolder, who all smiled brightly and waved. “Yeah, okay,” she said, taking the bill and stuffing it into the jacket that she wore. “Hop on in.”
And thus it was that the four otherworldly interlopers found themselves, just a short while later, at the Canterlot Mall.
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Special thanks to the Anons over on 4chan for helping me iron out some of the kinks with the Cash-4-Gold scene. I'm not going for realism in how much cash the four of them got, just a number that's big enough to be funny without being so big that it makes people call shenanigans.
Also a huge thanks to Trinary for helping me iron out a lot of this, specifically with regards to the fact that the original version of the fic was too big for the contest and would have been unreadably bad had I tried to keep it under 12K words. More on that below.
I originally wanted to start this story in Equestria and have the Young Six and Cozy Glow sneak into the castle and use the mirror, but as the contest had a 12,000 word count limit I decided to instead start in media res. Actually this has turned into a personal challenge for me to keep it under 12K words. I'm verbose by nature. Even then, it's a challenge I almost failed: originally this story was supposed to star all of the Young Six, and they were supposed to meet all of the Mane-7. However as I was writing the story just kept ballooning to the point where basically each of the Young Six were only going to get about 1,000 words apiece, which wasn't really enough for them to do anything. Maybe if the contest was 20,000 words instead...but it wasn't, so, I cut all but the essentials and reworked the story.
10058123
Well I'm sure if it's successful, we might see the full Young Six visit this world later? Perhaps with half of them trying very hard to pretend it's the first time?
Great start on this chapter.
I'm suspecting I could keep doing this for awhile, couldn't I? I mean, all we need now are some humpback whales and a little time travel...
This is great, though, I myself have long been toying with a fic idea exploring the Young 6 going through the mirror. Hadn't done it yet because I kept getting stuck on what I wanted Yona to be on the other side.
But otherwise I was thinking something freakishly similar to this (even Ocellus coming through completely unaffected by the mirror), so I'm actually kinda glad to see a moment of minds thinking alike here. 
If someone walks up to you and starts to say "you humans" before quickly correcting themselves with "we", then proceeds to give you an inappropriately large amount of money for a common service, it quickly becomes obvious they're not human. Either that, or severely mentally damaged. And that they probably obtained the money through shady means.
...Why isn't someone calling an ambulance for Cozy? Let alone the police?
Interesting that changeling magic still works as normal when most other equestrian brands seem to be stopped or at least altered.
I do wonder what would happen to Yona and Silverstream. The former might be considered close enough to a pony to end up human (they're bovids so genetically very different to horses, but at least they have a corresponding Earth species compared to Griffins and Dragons) Silverstream might become an aquatic bird, maybe a duck, or a penguin, becoming a fish might cause some issues unless there's a large body of water near the portal.
When Ocellus tried out her human form the first time, there should have been a paragraph for anyone nearby due to a sudden naked girl on campus. At outdoors. But word limit says otherwise.
When you live in a nudist society, I don’t think a naked girl can make Cozy faze one bit.
10075949
Because money
Coll chapter but all I can think of now is EG Rarity seeing Ocellus, freezing for a sec and screeching out of existence, arms waving and all XD
10075949
Maybe. In this world its more likely to think "that might be one of those magic motherfuckers" since quite a few of those magical instances have been recorded and posted online(and probably more of them have been then we know, especially after the entire senior class spent a unknown amount of time in ponyland) and there may be even more random artifacts various historical pony figures have chucked into the "forgetaboutit" portal.
If it was not in a world already vaguely familiar with magical shit, "that's not a human" would be a response saved for only actual crazies (and young people)
10076603
I mean, 100$ is 100$
Okay, good start. Thanks for the reminder how much I loathe Spike being turned into a dog thanks to the damned mirror. I gotta admit, it was a bit jarring to have the exchange scene first and then see them emerging from the mirror. Also, you captured Cozy Glow well. I so wanted to punch her. :p
...
It's me. You know it's me. It's Cozy Glow. We don't know what the hell she really is.
10076911
I can see where this would normally go in TRW... a bunch of kids throwing around hundred dollar bills... Someone is bound to call the cops sooner or later on them, they get incarcerated on suspicion of theft, the dog and the bird wind up in the city KILL shelter, there was an exchange of rare gold coins, nothing the kids say makes any sense to the authorities, and if a parent or guardian can't be located the assumption is that they are all illegal immigrants and wind up being incarcerated indefinitely until deportation to Celestia knows where. Meanwhile, our little doggy, do to her aggressive behavior is headed for the big sleep.
10075949
Does one really want to confront a potential alien that has either the ability to, or the technology to transform into the body of native of the planet?
10058123
So the portal turns non ponies into animals (except changelings, because reasons) . Does that mean Starswirl failed to account non ponies into the mirror's enchantments, or that he is a huge racist?
10082747
Mix of both. He wanted to ensure that non/ponies; which at the time were frequent foes of Equestria, couldn’t use it. However he keyed it to ungulates rather than ponies specifically because he just didn’t take creatures like yaks or hippogriffs into account. In his mind, at least at the time, hooves = pony
10082747 Well why would anypony think inferior creatures with barely-functional brains could even must the intellect to walk through a mirror in the first place? (so racism, much prejudice)
Ok imma admit i lost the show sometime when the school opend or coulda been in se7 not sure when so er whos cozy glow abd why does she make me think terik would think twice about trusting her further then he could throw her at full power
10117531
Cozy Glow is a pegasus filly. She’s also basically pure evil. And best friends with Tirek! However she has no special powers beyond being cute, intelligent, and likable. She completely misunderstands the point of friendship, seeing it merely as a means to power.
She’s got no backstory, though, or reason for why she acts the way she does. The show did her dirty, to be blunt. And that’s before I talk about what happened to her through Season 9...
10076126
Penguins! Perfect! I heartily approve of this idea, old chum!
10117574
Very succinct and accurate description, good sir! Methinks your insecurities may cause you to overemphasize your verbosity. Nevertheless, I enjoy every word you write, so never stop!
Wow, Starswirl is a racist jerk... So par for the course as far as ponies go.
10614473
he made them harmless
Rereading this, particularly the part where Ocellus goes human, and really wondering how that works - she seems to map an original naked human form off one clothed same, then improvises a bunch of clothes on the spot. Raises various questions about how creative they can get...
And Silverstream is...?
10845246
Lady Not Appearing In This Fic, though she’s mentioned later.
Really pleased with what the mirror did to them. Ocellus is actually a pleasant surprise. :D
I love the use of "bus pilot".
So I'm assuming this is taking place in the midst of that time period between when the Student Six met Cozy, and when they found out what she was really like?
11161261
Yup.
I absolutely adore Trouble in Tiatarta and its sequel, and was very surprised to see this author’s note on a seemingly unrelated story! Now I know this will be fantastic.