//------------------------------// // Unscheduled Knowledge // Story: Return to sender // by NaN //------------------------------// A knock on the door nudged Twilight Sparkle ever so slightly out of her reading trance. It only managed to do so, because it was a single, unusually loud knock, like somepony had crashed into the door. “Spike, would you-” “I’m on it.” “Thanks.” Returning her attention to ‘How to be a Princess, Volume XLVIII: Proper dining etiquette, Part IV’, Twilight tuned out the conversation Spike had with whoever was at the door. After all, her schedule demanded, that she finished this book until nightfall, including Princess Celestia’s hoofwritten notes. Those 500 pages would not read themselves. About seven pages later, her attention was again diverted from the fascinating read. “Um, Twilight? I’m not sure where to put these books. I cannot even tell if they’re fiction or not.” “What books? Who was at the door?” “That mailmare, Ditzy Doo I think, delivered a package with lots of books. I thought you ordered them.” “I did, but I only sent the letter to the Canterlot Bookshop of Various Interests yesterday. They never deliver that fast.” Confused and somewhat annoyed, Twilight put a bookmark on the current page and stood up from a large collection of books, pillows and cushions. Totally not a fort. Spike had dragged the package into the middle of the room and had begun unpacking its contents. Twilight counted no less than nine books lying on the floor and the package did not seem to be empty yet. Walking down the stairs, she eyed the package suspiciously. It didn’t look like a normal package. There were more stickers and symbols on the sides than usual. The cardboard was held together by strips of a brown, shiny material, that she didn’t recognize. Spike held up one book and showed her the cover. It was a paperback, but the cover glossed in the light of the afternoon sun shining through the windows. The cover showed an abstract design of lines and geometric shapes. The title read ‘Complex analysis’, written by ‘Theodore W. Gamelin’. Spike pointed to the other books lying around on the floor. “These books seem expensive. They are all printed on very nice paper, with incredibly precise typography. From the strange names of the authors I’d say those are all imports too. Who knows how good the Marebian printing has gotten in the last decades.” “I never ordered any books like that. I would remember.” Spike looked at Twilight and gave her a dirty look. “Are you sure? I’d like to remind you what happened last Cider Season.” “That was only one time! And those books turned out to be great addition to the library.” “Yes, because it turned out that half the town likes to read romance novels. You know, I still can’t stand reshelving those books without being reminded of ‘Dragons and unicorns: A romantic guide’.” “Well, nopony forced you to read that book, Cassanova.” Spike blushed and turned away from Twilight, busying himself with stacking the books on a pile. Twilight examined the package closer and looked at the addresses printed on a piece of sticky paper. “That’s odd. I’ve never seen somepony bothering to print the addresses neatly on- Hold on. Spike! This package is not for us!” “What?” “It isn’t addressed to the library or anywhere near Ponyville. I’ve never heard of London and my name is certainly not Margaret. Spike, why did you open this package?!” “I... I didn’t check the address. I assumed it was for us. We get packages all the time. What are we going to do now.” “Repackage it and send it off again, of course. And by we, you obviously meant you. I have a book to finish.” ~~~ The sun was high in the sky, when Twilight finished the last bite of her daisy sandwich and slurped the last of her breakfast tea. Princess Celestia’s notes were quite extensive on this particular volume and forced her to stay up until midnight reading them. She sighed. The things a pony does to stay on schedule. Twilight crossed off the second item on a three item checklist. “Waking up, check. Breakfast, check. Volume XLIX, uncheck. Let’s get to it.” Having barely gotten past the introduction, Twilight heard the door open and could hear Spike breathing hard while dragging a large package into the house. “I’m *wheeze* back.” “Why do you still have that package? Did you drag it all around town and brought it back here? Oh Spike, I know you don’t always understand everything I say, but I thought it was obvious, that I wanted the package send to the correct recipient.” “Yes, yes, I understood you just fine. But the mare at the post station said, that they can’t accept the package, because it is not a valid address. They don’t have that town in their list and wouldn’t know where to ship it off to.” “But it came here from somewhere. Clearly somepony accepted it. Did you talk to the mailmare from yesterday?” “No, apparently she is on vacation from today until next tuesday and nopony knew how to contact her.” “Great, now we’re stuck with the package. Oh well, just put it somewhere.” “Yes, ma’am.” “I told you to stop saying that. One might think you mean it sarcastically.” Spike snorted and began dragging the package into a corner, leaving Twilight to return to her book. It was an exceptionally dry volume on the minutiae of addressing a subject in informal situations. Time crawled like a snail and paragraphs turned into sentences, sentences into words and words into syllables, until she could no longer remember how the sentence even started. Clearly this volume was not meant to be read in one sitting. Or at all. Twilight needed a break. “You know,” she began “it wouldn’t hurt to look into a few of those books. Just to find out what they’re about.” Spike looked up from his own reading material and couldn’t help but to put a grin on his face. “For science?” “For science!” ~~~ There were a total of twenty-two books in that package, as well as two smaller boxes with lots of confusing printing on the sides, that only baffled Twilight. She didn’t dare to open the boxes, especially as she never heard of anything like a ‘3D-printer’ or a ‘netbook’. Why somepony would put a book into its own box was a mystery to her. There also was a letter attached to the inside of the top, hoofwritten on pinkish paper. It obviously was personal, so they left it alone. Twilight recognized some of the titles as scientific works, but some touched subjects, that seemed utterly strange and unknown. What was ‘Software’ even supposed to mean? Did it have something to do with the device show on the larger of the two boxes? At least the books about chemistry and mathematics seemed reasonable enough, although their tables of content revealed many more topics than Twilight had learned so far. Clearly this was advanced material for study by esteemed members of the scientific community. But why did she never learn anything of this in Canterlot? Had Princess Celestia hidden the more advanced fields of study from here? One mystery after the other came out of these books and that did nothing to divert Twilight’s interest from them. “Spike, do you know what this calls for?” “An unexpected rescheduling of everything for this week?” “Well, that too. But I thought more of some treats from Sugarcube Corner.” Spike’s eyes gleamed with joy, as he got up and started for the door. “I’m on it!” “And make it double, I think we have a long day ahead of us.”