In the house, Twilight was trying to get Noah calm.

“Noah, today we are going to Canterlot and I want you to be on your best behavior, OK?” Twilight asked the foal.

“Yeah,” Noah said.

“Good luck!” June said when saw Noah’s smile.

“Thanks,” Noah replied.

So off they went to the train station.

Ponyville station reflected the technological revolution that Equestria was going through, all made possible by the application of a much older power. It had been known for centuries that boiling water to create steam produced power, but only now was it possible for such power to be harnessed. Previous attempts had ended cataclysmically badly, with many explosions reported due to insufficient safeguards.

The station itself had only one track, as for some reason the builders of the railroad thought it suitable to only give the station one platform. Sitting in the platform was a squat 0-2-2 tender engine, with cylinders set at 45 degrees relative to the frames. These engines had been produced in their hundreds, and this one was pulling a passenger train made up of coaches that were not dissimilar to the old stagecoaches.

Once Twilight had boarded the train with Noah, she found them a seat and sat down.

“Well, isn’t this just so exciting, your first train ride ever,” Twilight said to her son.

Noah just looked out the window and said nothing.

The Guard sounded his whistle, and away the train went, with a loud snort from the chimney and steam pouring from its cylinders. The draincocks emptied in a most spectacular manner, sending steam showering everywhere.

As the train thundered along, at speeds unimaginable only 20 years earlier, the scenery rolled by as the train climbed mountains and thundered over rivers on great bridges built by that great engineer himself, Bruneel, and roared up into the great spiral tunnel. The grades up into Canterlot were simply far too steep to allow for a railway line to be built straight up the side of the cliff, as the train would simply slip and stop. Although an experiment had shown that adhesion locomotives were superior to geared ones and those that used rack rail, these engines could only realistically cope with gradients of up to 1 in 80 or so. To this end, the railway had built a pair of great spiral tunnels, looping through the mountainside and allowing the train to gain elevation.

And onwards that train did fly, climbing like a rocket as it flew up the cliff and roared into the second tunnel. After another few curves underneath the mountain, the train roared along a patch of smooth ground, over a vast viaduct, and into Canterlot Station, a vast and grand building with 8 tracks, and a massive, vaulting roof which, again, would have been impossible to build were it not for the massive engineering evolution that had occured only 20 years ago with the start of the Industrial Revolution.

Once Noah and Twilight had arrived in the station, the conductor helped Twilight to get Noah’s wheelchair off the train. “Have a good time in the city, madame” The conductor said with a tip of his hat before walking away and leaving Twilight and Noah to go exploring the city.

“We should go to the library, to figure out how to take care of you, Noah,” Twilight said with a soft smile at her son.

“Let’s go!” Noah said with a laugh. So, off they went, looking for the Library.

It soon became apparent that finding the library on foot would not be practical at all. So Twilight decided to take a steam carriage to get there. She would have taken the Maretropolitan Railway, but her son made her nervous, as she knew he wouldn’t cope in the conditions. So they went on the surface instead.

The vehicle in question resembled a carriage from the old days, but had a small boiler and internal connecting rods instead of a pony attached to the front. The driver sat on the front, and drove the machine with a combination of chains and foot pedals. Unlike the new-fangled petrol engines, these machines had no easy way of speeding up or slowing down. The pedals on the steam carriages worked as regulators, controlling the flow of steam to the cylinders, whilst the chains were linked to the cutoff, which worked as a continuous clutch to control speed. And there were always the steam brakes, to slow the machine down.

Twilight and Noah climbed aboard, as the steam carriage shot into the street, tearing round bends and zooming along the thoroughfares at the terrifying pace of 12 miles an hour! But things soon went wrong, as the machine collided with a set of railings, comprehensively demolishing them. The driver quickly set the machine into reverse, backed it onto the road, and continued with the journey that went without incident. The machine rolled to a relatively smooth stop outside the library.

“Canterlot Library!” called the driver, and Noah and Twilight dismounted.

Noah looked up at the Library with it's very tall towers on each side of the building.

“Wow, is so great, we here!” Noah said to Twilight whose jaw dropped.

“Let’s go inside,” Twilight said once she found her voice again. So they went inside the library.

The library was huge. It had a great, vaulting ceiling and was full to the brim with bookcases. A vast machine allowed the catalogue to be accessed and instantly move any requested book to the front of the library, powered by (what else?) steam. Twilight walked up to this most unusual of machines, and keyed in a few letters. The machine brought up a baffling array of words and titles, but Twilight narrowed it down to AU.

This place be so cool, i like” Noah shouted. “Noah, be quiet this is a library” Twilight hissed.

“Sorry,” Noah whispered.

As Twilight continued to punch in the letters, from left to right, the machine gurgled and spat out a book, entitled A Field Manual to the Autistic Spectrum Disorder. She took the book and laid it out on a nearby table.

It was only then she became aware of Noah behind her.

“I operate strange contraption!” Noah called.

Noah, despite his apparent difficulties with moving, had successfully manipulated the keys to bring up another book, which was spat out of the machinery and flew through the air, landing alongside the first book with a bump. This one was entitled Cerebral Palsy: Recognising and Assisting those with the Condition.

Twilight, as was her custom, took detailed notes on all things of relevance, but alas it was time to go, if they wanted to catch the train to Ponyville.

“When we going to read books?” Noah asked after a while.

“I don’t know sweetie,” Twilight responded.

“Then why we even come to library if we are not going to read any book.” Noah questioned.

Twilight was stunned she didn’t know what to say.

The book they chose to look at was the one on ASD. They learned many things, such as that Noah would, in all likelihood, not react to things in the same way as other children, or be slow to get things that others find obvious. Inversely, he could be quick to get things that others were slow to understand.

But then they had to leave, or else be marooned in Canterlot for the night.

“We need to leave, otherwise we will not catch the train back to Ponyville and we wouldn’t want to walk at night through the Whitetail Woods to get to our little cottage, now would we?” Twilight said.

“But what about the book I got? We should also read that,” Noah said to his mother.

“Noah Sparkle, I don’t have time, we need to leave, and we need to go now” Twilight harshly whispered.

Noah started to hit himself.

“NO GO BACK TO HOME!” Noah screeched.

Twilight picked up Noah and got out of that library faster than somebody can find a needle in a haystack. Once they were outside Twilight sat Noah down.

“NOAH! I DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR YOUR TEMPER TANTRUM!” Twilight roared.

Twilight’s screaming seemed to make Noah stop, but the next thing Twilight new Noah was crying.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Twilight said when she had noticed Noah’s sadness.

Once Twilight and Noah came home, Twilight’s papa questioned where they went.

“WELL, LOOK AT THIS ITS YOU AND THE LITTLE BOY” Nightlight screamed.

“I-I c-can e-explain,” Twilight stammered.

“Silence, go to your room and take the little brat with you” Nightlight bellowed.

“Yes, papa,” Twilight said as tears welled up in her eyes.

Twilight ran into her room and shut the door and started to cry.

“Oh, Noah, why is father always so mean?” Twilight cried.

“Mommy have sad, because grandpa not like Noah,” Twilight’s son said.

“Not helping,” Twilight said in between sobs.

“Tell me story of how mommy found Noah” Twilight’s son finally said.

Twilight perked up a little.

“Well it all started on a dark and stormy night, I was walking through the woods when I heard crying coming from someplace, so I checked over by the bushes, and I saw a young pony almost frozen to death, and that pony was you my sweet” Twilight told the story.

“Why does grandpa not like me?” Noah asked.

“Well, he has his way of showing affection, when I brought you into our home my grandfather had been in pain for the last couple of weeks, and when he saw you had a disability well he doesn’t like ponies with disabilities it is uncommon in our culture to see a pony with a disability, four generations ponies have said that ponies with disability used to be cursed” Twilight explained.

“Oh, should Noah leave?” Noah asked sadly.

“No, you can stay we just need to avoid my grandpa for now,” Twilight said.

Downstairs Nightlight was fuming.

“HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?” Nightlight yelled angrily.

“I think you need to calm down I bet they didn’t mean any harm, I know that our culture may allow that disabled ponies are burned at the stake but that doesn’t excuse that a kid should be burned at the stake” June said to Nightlight.

“You just gave me an idea, out of my way” Nightlight said pushing June aside.

“What are you going to do?” June asked once she got back up.

“I am going to make that little brat pay, with his life!” Nightlight said darkly before going upstairs.

“NO!” June yelled after him.

Once nightlight reached Twilight’s bedroom he knocked on the door. “Oh Twilight give me the boy, I wanna take him out for a little bit,” Nightlight said sweetly from outside the door.

When there came no answer Nightlight went down to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife he could find then he went back upstairs.

“Twilight you leave me no choice!” Twilight’s father bellowed kicking in the door with his hind legs.

When Twilight saw her father wielding a knife she took her son and escaped out the window and ran into the woods.

Twilight went deeper into the woods when she found herself surrounded by darkness, she held Noah who was really upset close to her body.

The monstrosity that faced her now was horrifying, horrifying indeed.

It was large, and purple, and had three heads, each of which terminated in a long snout with a dastardly tongue capable of shooting fire. The frame of the creature moved around on 6 massive limbs, and the creature stood at least the hight of 20 fully grown mares.

And this creature had Twilight in its sights.

Author's Note

Please read my stories