Twilight Velvet blinked, confusion saturating every part of her being. She sat back in the plush chair she was seated in and set her daughter down on the floor gently. “What do you mean you’ve reached a diagnosis? Is my little Sparkle sick?”
Next to Twilight, her husband Nightlight cleared his throat as his eyes widened. “We won’t have to see some expensive witch doctor for whatever she has, right?”
The doctor sighed and smiled. She was a unicorn mare with a gray-streaked mane and a worn, easy smile. A pair of round spectacles rested easily upon her muzzle, but Twilight Velvet watched as she drew them into her pale orange magic and slipped them into the front pocket of her white coat.
“Your daughter is physically a very healthy filly,” Doctor Missing Piece said, her tone filled with a levity that was downright deceptive to Twilight’s ears.
She felt her husband sigh in relief next to her, resisting the urge to elbow him sharply. Did he not notice that omission?
“Well, then what part of her isn’t healthy?” Twilight asked. Something in her tone was enough to get the receptionist to snap her head up, startled. Twilight paid no mind to the mare; she was the only other one in the waiting room. The office’s closing hours were soon, and she and Nightlight had been assured that the only reason that they were not brought into another room for the talk.
“It is my understanding that your daughter has been showing atypical behavior ever since early fillyhood? That she was late to talk and can’t talk around non-family very well?”
Twilight’s withers rolled with the brunt of the frustration she was suppressing. Her lips pursed into a thin line, and next to her, Nightlight was eyeing her with concern. “I’m very aware of this. We were told that she was a mute of sorts by the last whitecoat… something about it being elective?”
“Selective,” Nightlight corrected gently.
Twilight looked in his direction for a moment and gave a tiny nod. “Yes. Barely any talking. No eye contact. Our little Sparkle has been afraid of noises and textures for pony’s sake… we’ve admittedly been at the point where we considering taking her to an exorcist stars-darned zebra doctor next just to rule out some kind of enchantment being placed upon her.”
“We don’t know that much about magic,” Nightlight said, sheepishly scratching the back of his head. “Everypony in our family has always scored above average on Arcane Evaluation Reports and our son — little Twilight’s big brother — has been studying at a guard academy.”
“He shows a lot of promise,” Twilight said dreamily, modestly clasping her forehooves in front of her, “or so we’re told. Military school has been a good choice for him. To hear that our Sparkle is… well, when we had to pull her from the public magic kindergarten after all the meltdowns—”
“—and bullying,” Nightlight said, adding his own whispering interruption with a shudder.
“Yes… I… it was so hard to believe that she couldn’t make any friends or… do anything that other foals her age could. Shiny is a normal colt with such normal interests — oh, and maybe a pinch more than normal magic levels — but we thought Sparkle was going to be so special. You and your other whitecoat folks have been talking to her for a few hours — can’t you see how smart she is? None of us understood how she couldn’t be doing well in school when school used to be the only thing she ever talked about!”
“...Until we enrolled her in our local magic kindergarten,” said Nightlight, shaking his head sadly. “Right after her first day, all her excitement was replaced with refusal and fear. Our little Twilight Sparkle never so much as thought about putting her hoof out of line, and she cried about going to school when she used to cry about not being in school like her brother was.”
Twilight looked to Missing Piece, unable to keep a small measure of pleading in her tone. “Surely you can see why we started to think something was wrong? There aren’t any chapbooks or materials we could find at the library about what could be causing this behavior…”
“And our family physician did assure us that it was purely behavioral,” added Nightlight.
“So,” Twilight said tersely, “what is wrong with Sparkle? What has to be done differently?”
Doctor Missing Piece cleared her throat calmly. She gave the two a distantly reproachful look before finally seating herself across from Twilight and her husband. From the unusually relaxed position she took on the cushioned bench, Twilight was able to see the rainbow of question marks that dotted the mare’s flank. Their arrangement was a lax sort of infinity loop — something that was far too telltale of uncertainty, which was the last thing that Twilight wanted to see on the flank of any whitecoat, let alone a developmental pediatrician.
“Absolutely nothing is wrong with your daughter — that doesn’t mean she isn’t going to struggle, though. There are many adaptations as parents that you two will have to make in order to continue and make sure that Twilight Sparkle is the happiest, healthiest filly that she can be.”
Twilight was about ready to bite the inside of her cheek. Their daughter wasn’t able to watch a color-coded stack of blocks be put in a toy chest without bawling her eyes out. When Twilight decided to do some spring cleaning in her daughter’s room to welcome in the grand new year of 989, little Sparkle had stumbled into her newly tidied room, bookshelves, dresser, and desk, what followed had been one of the greatest nightmares of all their lives. Sparkle had what Twilight and Nightlight later learned was called a panic attack at her mother rearranging the furniture and doing spring cleaning for the first time since the littler Twilight had left her crib.
Anything not noted in a calendar or having the predictability of a pendulum’s sway was clearly something that could set Sparkle off. For a mare with two growing foals and a lifelong love of interior styles, this was unthinkable. For Twilight’s little star, it was unspeakable — she had only started working on really verbalizing the year before, and kept her muzzle too stuck in books to articulate what problems she had. While Twilight understood this was the common nature of all foals at that age, the severity with Twilight Sparkle was enough to make a grown mare want to have her own private tantrum sometimes. Shining Armor had never been like this, and it wasn’t in Twilight Velvet’s heart to punish a foal for something that was likely beyond their control.
“What does my daughter need?”
“Well,” Missing Piece began, her tone cautious and more relaxing than Twilight wanted to admit, “it does appear that your daughter is neurodivergent.”
Both Twilight and Nightlight blinked like a moth staring at their first lantern.
“She has two brains?” Twilight asked.
“Oh, good gods!” Nightlight exclaimed, forehooves flying to his muzzle. “Does she need surgery?"
For once, the ever-patient warmth of Missing Pieces fell just a bit. The self-assured way she held her withers sagged with the same momentary sadness that stole her smile. “No, that isn’t what it means. ‘Neurodivergent’ means that your daughter is autistic.”
Twilight cocked her head to the side. “I don’t really think she likes drawing that much.”
Nightlight nodded in agreement. “We did get her an art kit a few Hearth’s Warming Day a few years ago. We thought it would help her exercise her magic and use ways to communicate with us when her words failed her.”
Missing Piece’s ears swiveled back dejectedly. “What I said was autistic Missus Velvet and Mister Nightlight. Autism spectrum disorder is a very misunderstood condition that lasts a pony’s whole life.”
A cold clench immediately gripped Twilight’s chest and she gasped at the sudden pain. Her mind was already galloping with every horrible possibility — hospitalization, mountains of medication, an untold amount of stitches, and gods knew what else. How was their little Twilight Sparkle going to live her whole life with this debilitating, mysterious illness?
“No, no, no,” Nightlight whispered, gulping visibly and letting his ears swivel back. “It can’t be so that somepony like our little Twilight Sparkle is going to be sick forever. You told us that she was physically alright, for pony’s sake!”
One forehoof was raised abruptly before either of them could protest further. “No, she isn’t chronically ill. It is a developmental disorder with a whole spectrum of severity. Twilight does appear to be on the higher functioning side, seeing as her language comprehension is excellent. Her intellectual, magical, and cognitive abilities range from being fine to prodigious, if I do say so myself. However, she is emotionally and socially very, very behind her peers. I would take her to somepony else just to be sure she doesn’t have anything else going untreated alongside her autism.”
Twilight Velvet had been wringing her hooves enough to visibly rub her white coat into a ragged display. “Just what does autism even do? We’ve never even heard of that before, so what can we do to help our daughter if we don’t even know her affliction?”
“We have some pamphlets and other helpful materials to take home,” said the doctor with her usual breezy tone returned. She brushed her Prancian braid away from where its loose strands had escaped their confines. “I'm sure you'll find them much more helpful than the chapbooks about the usual earth-pony-devised methods of 'quiet hooves' hogwash and scolding magical stimming. But I imagine you two would like a little more of an explanation before we bring Twilight Sparkle out from the playroom and send you all home?”
“Yes!” Twilight and Nightlight both hurriedly exclaimed. “Yes! Of course!” By now, both of them were clutching one another in an embrace born of anxiety.
Missing Piece nodded and sat back, readying an explanation she had clearly given so many times before. Twilight spotted the practiced ease in which the doctor returned her spectacles to her muzzle and the calm way she spoke.
“Autism impairs some of the more basic social response a pony can have. Missus Velvet, you said that your daughter often had a hard time understanding your tone and reading the expression of her teachers before you pulled her out of public schooling. This is a common manifestation of autism found across all areas of the spectrum. Autistic ponies are capable of living just as happy and long lives as anypony else, they just need an extra guiding light sometimes in order to help understand themselves and others. This is usually in the form of school accommodations and real therapy, not the kind of stuff they're peddling in Manehattan institutes and other places like them.”
Twilight Velvet drew in a deep breath and unwound herself from the hug of her husband. The cushy waiting room chair welcomed her as she plopped back in one, drawing a deep breath and disturbing the elegant simplicity of the way she rolled up the waves of her mane. “You mean she just might… need a headshrinker?”
“I would recommend a family therapist who specializes in autism to help you two work with little Twilight — and vice versa,” said Missing Pieces with an approving nod. “Twilight Sparkle needs to know that you are there for her. Sometimes, her world is going to feel very strange and scary, and she will want to stick with what is familiar to her more than most foals. Have you noticed any interests she holds more passionately than any other foal her age?”
Tension melted away from the room as the awkward laughter of Nightlight and Twilight drowned out the burble of the fish tank. However long it would take to explain autism, they knew that it would take twice as long to explain the odd fixations of their daughter. There was not a pony alive who would not be able to pick up on them after thirty seconds of talking with her — and Doctor Pieces had spent hours with their little Sparkle.
Doctor Pieces smiled more authentically, the gesture as warm as her peachy coat. “It’s good that you two are aware of your daughter’s special interests. They’re going to be a great source of fun and comfort for her, and it is extraordinarily rare that an autistic pony has an unhealthy special interest — and the same goes for their fixation on it. We rarely see anything so dysfunctional that you should be concerned, just make sure that you let her know she gives others space to express themselves too. When you consider how hard it is going to be for Twilight Sparkle socially and the love she has for their special interests, she becomes extra vulnerable to bullies. She is very likely to not know if somepony might be trying to use her with false niceties, even when she is at an age where her peers will learn to have seen past a fake smile.”
“I have been doing homeschooling lessons with her since the kindergarten debacle,” Nightlight chimed. “Vel and I talked… we’re not going to be able to do it forever. I can make spyglasses from home, at least for a while. But we’re never sending her back to public school… I’m afraid we just can’t think of where she might be able to go. The truth is that it is hard to imagine what Twilight Sparkle’s future would be like when she has no friends outside of the family, is not involved in community herd behavior, and refuses to even play in the garden. Neither of us has tried to force anything upon her beyond what is reasonable — eating her veggies, no late-night reading, and remembering to brush her teeth. Past the next few birthdays, the idea of raising her is… so uncertain, Doctor Pieces.”
In response, the doctor’s posture straightened and she nodded somberly. “I understand that, but you are in luck. Canterlot is full of resources once a pony understands what autism is, which is a breath of fresh air. The disorder is actually most common in unicorns, and we know that those considered magical prodigies — regardless of their ability in other areas — are often more likely to be autistic, though not necessarily why. Being able to understand the notable impact autism has on magic beyond splinter spells would be a breakthrough. Unfortunately, we’re barely anywhere different with research into the condition itself than we were seventy years ago. That’s unlikely to change, even if it would be a leap and a gallop in educating parents and teachers about what a crisis under-diagnosis and no autism awareness is doing to Equestria. Unfortunately, you try arguing for the importance of magical-cognitive research in a nation with an earth pony majority and their long-standing ideas about the nature of magic, along with a goddess who agrees with them on the throne.”
Twilight Velvet caught the sound of Nightlight awkwardly clearing her throat and nodding along absentmindedly. She had been rubbing at her hooves again, letting her mind wander to if she would benefit from having bracelets to fidget with. Both her and Nightlight could never comprehend how anypony could be critical of Princess Celestia, especially not if they ever were at the level of education that Doctor Pieces had to be. There wasn’t a doubt in Twilight’s mind that this mare had taken a history lesson at some point in her life, and likely in some grand, polished place instead of the usual array of quaint schoolhouses that Twilight Velvet’s Equestrian art books had informed her were the norm outside of all larger cities — the kind that had neither magic schools nor flight camps. Even though both her and Nightlight were Canterlot natives, they couldn’t imagine such a vastly different educational situation, much less what might be wrong with it.
And still, this mare whose academia experience easily outshone all of Twilight’s own was probably three steps and two leaps for what could sound like heresy instead of venting out of context.
“Thank you,” Twilight said quietly, sincerely as she kept her eyes lowered demurely, ”for all that you have told us. Nightie and I were so scared about what might be happening — and if we would have to find a way to break gods-know what kind of terrible news to Shiny if something had turned out wrong. I… I think we’re ready to see our little star now.”