“No.” Train Wreck continued rubbing his forehead with one hoof, hoping to make the problem go away. “Just no.”
“I still don’t get why in tarnation you had to go and grab Rainbow with yer tongue,” Applejack insisted, “Ya gotta agree, that’s pretty suspicious, and downright creepy.”
“I was healing her,” the giant explained, “It’s one of Middler’s tricks. I accidently knock Rainbow Dash into a wall trying to shield my face from getting punched.”
“Wait,” Dash interrupted, “You heal ponies with your tongue? Eww.”
“Their not tongues,” Train Wreck carefully explained. They’re my tazzl snakes. Think of them like extra heads that live in my mouth. I actually don’t have a ‘tongue’ per’se, more of a proboscis that I use for drinking. All my tasting and speaking bits are further down my throat.”
“Not backing off on the eww factor, dude.” Rainbow scrunched her face up in disgust. “It’s a good thing Rarity’s not here, she’d freak out at shear ickiness.”
“And why is that darling?” Dash jumped at the sound of her friend’s voice entering the room. “Would you treat a lunar pegasus any differently just because you find bats to be disgusting? I fail to see how this is any different my dear. And why is our new prince tied up on the floor?”
“I keep asking that question myself.” Train Wreck rolled his eyes in frustration. “Also, could everybody please stop call me ‘prince’ and ‘your highness’.”
“Would you prefer ‘Your Majesty’?” Twilight asked less than helpfully.
“I would prefer Train Wreck, but honestly if you just want to go back to ‘Look out it’s a big scary monster!’, well I think that at this point it would be an improvement.” The monster groused.
“Wait, darling,” Rarity blinked in confusion, “are you saying you actually don’t want to be a prince.”
“What I’m saying is that I’m not.” As he spoke, his industrious snakes undid his binding and carefully coiled the rope and set it aside, allowing the beast to stand to his full height. “Discord is trolling the royal shipping party, and throwing unwanted attention at my family. The Princesses are playing along to placate the big bad chaos god and make him feel important, and out of some misplaced sense of pity for me. Nopony in Canterlot considers me even a pony, really. Certainly not an alicorn. And definitely not royalty. And I’m okay with that. I’m a monster, my daughter is also a monster, and Z-978 has an egg that I’m pretty sure is going to hatch into a little monster.”
“Ooh, you gotta make me the breezy-godmother! You gotta! My first niece! Well not counting Diane, although Diane definitely counts, but my first niece that I get to meet when she’s still a baby! Or grub? Or maybe a face-hugging-dragon-bug!” Pinkie suddenly stopped to inhale. “I want my niece to be a face-hugging-dragon-bug!”
“What do ya mean, niece?” Applejack raised an eyebrow.
“Well, Train Wreck is married to Surprise, and since she’s my clone sister and Z-978 is in her herd, that means Z’s my sister-in-law, and Diane and Z’s future facehugger are my nieces,” Pinkie explained with a smile.
“So you met my family?” Train wreck arched an eyebrow at the pink mare.
“Yeah, I met Diane and Z at your funeral. It was really super sad.” The pink mare deflated a moment but then bounced right out of it. “But then you survived. Which made the funeral kinda unnecessary. And now you're all healed up and not looking like burned lassauga, AND I get to meet this new mare, Carrot Plate that Surprise has been telling me about. Waifu, sister, or daughter? Come on! Ya gotta tell me! Surprise has been really playing close to the vest on that one!”
“Carrot… is still figuring out who she wants to be in our family.” The fuzzy blue monster rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “We’re not going to push her. She has a history… it’s complicated.”
“So let me get this straight, Pinkie,” Applejack spoke carefully, knowing full well she was walking into minefield, “You’re… we’ll go with clone… Your clone from another dimension married a human from an alternate Equestria who Discord turned into… that. They adopted two changelings and formed a herd. And now there’s some fourth mare involved and you’re trying to figure out how she’s related to you?”
“Yepperoni,” Pinkie nodded
“You do realize I’m right here, right? Giant monster, right here. Hard to miss. Also not deaf.” Train Wreck complained.
“Look, I don’t mean no offense, I’m just tryin’ to wrap my head around it is all.” Applejack tried to walk back her statements, looking nervous, and a little embarrassed. “A lotta things are changing, and I ain’t so sure I’m on board with it.”
“As far as I know nopony’s invited you onboard, AJ.” Pinkie Pie said curiously, “Unless you’ve gotten invited into a herd on the sly?”
“No wait just a gall darned minute!” AJ blushed furiously, before glaring around the room. “Laugh it up all you want, but I say it ain’t natural!”
“What? Adoption?” Train Wreck glared back. “Because that’s what we’re talking about, right? How horrible my adopted family is?”
“Now don’t you go twistin’ my words! They got another word for them herds in Saddle Arabia, a right more honest word if’n ya ask me!” Applejacks growled with self-righteous fury, glaring murder at the giant stallion. “Ya know what that word is, your majesty? It’s called a harem!”
“Now wait just a minute! You ain’t gonna call my family a harem!” Train Wreck lowered his head like a charging bull.
“Okaaay,” Twilight pushed herself between the two power-houses. “Can we NOT start a brawl in the Castle of FRIENDSHIP? Please?”
“How can you be so okay with this, Twi?” The orange mare demanded as she stalked out of the room. “Your mentor is having a blasted orgy in Canterlot with some human pretending he’s a real pony! Another is parading around your own castle pretending he’s some kind of prince! That’s our actual government you humans are messing with! Did you ever think of that?”
“Actually, Train Wreck’s continuously asked you to please stop calling him a prince, and he also said that was not, in fact, a any kind of prince.” Pinkie supplied helpfully.
“He’s a blasted monster, is what he is, but at least he’s honest about it. Not like that monkey up in canterlot!” AJ angrily stomped out of the room.
“I- didn’t know Applejack felt that way about humans.” Jake was clearly more hurt by the insult than it’s intended target.
“Woah, Jake!” Rainbow Dash swooped in to support her friend. “You know she didn’t mean it like that.”
“Do I? I always thought she’d give me funny looks whenever the Crusaders came around wanting to hang out, but I thought it was my imagination.” The dejected human shuffled out of the room.
“I’m really sorry about this your majesty.” Train Wreck hung his head in shame. “This is why I try to stay out of sight. Discord’s made it pretty impossible for me to do that anymore, though…”