The group of 6 friends were sitting around Sunset's apartment. They were taking a break as they figured out their plan for later in the weekend.
As they chatted Applejack decided to bring up something that had been bugging her once she had gotten to know her new friend.
"So Sunset. Ah've been wonderin. When you first arrived, did you have any money?" The farmgirl asked.
"Not exactly. I did have a pouch filled with bits, but they didn't change over to the money for this world." Sunset replied.
"Bits?" asked a couple of the other girls quietly.
"Then how did you afford stuff?" Applejack question.
"Well, once I started controlling people, I made them give me stuff. However I still needed normal money so I pawned some of my bits off. Oh. Bits are what we used as currency in Equestria. They're gold coins. Gold is more common there, and isn't as expensive to mine as we can use magic rather than large machines. One second." Sunset explained before standing up and leaving the room briefly.
When she returned she held a small bag. Opening it up she pulled another bag out and removed a few gems from it.
Laying them out on the table she arranged them loosely in a line.
"So these are gems from this world. All roughly worth the same amount of money." Sunset said.
She glanced at Rarity who had started looking over the gems.
"If they're worth the same, why is that ruby smaller than the others? Even the diamond. I thought diamonds were supposed to be rare." Rainbow Dash asked.
"Well, the worth of diamonds are artificially inflated. A company held, maybe still holds, a monopoly on diamonds. So they hold back much of what they get so lower the supply and used propaganda to increase the demand. If they didn't diamonds would be worth a lot less." Rarity explained as she checked over the gems.
Sunset then laid out a bunch of larger gems. Including one that was the same size of an apple. Rarity gasped and started checking out the new gems.
"These are gems from Equestria. The crystal lattice that they're made of is quite different. The matrix lets the gems be enchanted easier. The enchantments can range from mundane to combat. A heat spell can make a gem explode like a grenade, to keeping a pony warm when it's cold, and even heat up a cooking surface." Sunset started, before catching Rarity as she picked up the large gem.
"Be careful with that one. It's a Lunar Sapphire, very rare." She said in a tentative voice.
"Of course darling. Does it have special meaning?" Rarity asked, looking at the gem in her hands through a jeweler's loop.
"Yeah, it was a gift." Sunset replied with a hint of sadness to her voice before putting out a few coins and a very small gem, about the size of a dime.
"These are bits. There's a range of denominations from a quarter bit to 25 bits. Usually beyond that we just use gems." Sunset explained as she organized the bits.
Picking up the small gem she said "This is what the bit is based off of. We call them bits because of an earth pony. Shortly after the three tribes unified, he was shopping and rather than overpay he bit off a piece of the gem. Though if you ask Princess Celestia she usually just says,'Because it's just a bit of money.' and then giggles to herself."
"I should probably give you guys a little bit of history. Out of the earth ponies, pegasi, and unicorns only the latter had any real currency. Since gems were utilized in spellcraft, there was precedent for using unenchanted ones in trade.
"The earth ponies used a barter system trading crops and whatnot. While the pegasi were a military society. You served in the army and in return anything you needed for was provided.
"When the three tribes united, Princess Celestia and Luna split the leadership roles between them. Celestia took the unicorn title, Luna the pegasi, and they alternated the earth pony one. There was some issues when they dealt with each other. One such was money as only the unicorns had a means of currency exchange. So they used the gems as the standard for the currency and made coins out of gold. When Luna was sealed into the moon Celestia held all three titles.
"This eventually caused some friction as she drifted away from actively ruling the earth ponies and pegasi. A revolt happened that lead to a civil war. Celestia's side won and she decided to properly unite all three tribes. It took a bit of time to smooth everything out after that." Sunset finished.
She gathered up all the stuff once her friends had a chance to examine it all.
"So do you still pawn the gold?" Rainbow asked.
"Yeah, but I've taken to smelting the coins down to rough bars. Got asked a couple leading questions about the coins early one. Never tried any of the gems I have. A large cut gem seemed like it might raise too big of a red flag." Sunset answered.
"We should go gem hunting!" Piped Pinkie Pie.
Her friends all looked at her.
"Well, there is an old jasper mine not too far out of town. We could check out where they threw all the rocks they weren't looking for." Rarity suggested.
They chatted about finding some precious stones and maybe a couple geodes. Pinkie asked if they could bring her sister Maud along to help check out the rocks, and plans were formed to spend the day rock hounding. Sunset and Applejack looked up the mine and found a number for the people who owned it.
A quick call got them permission. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were relegated to bringing a lunch for the trip.
Once they had gotten their plan figured out they set off to go get some smoothies.
Author's Note
951 words when I first finished it. Added a little more to the end to meet the minimum.
