//------------------------------//
// Welcome to Barbhdad 
// Story: Royal Duties 
// by biasedeyes 
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	There was no walkway ready for the airship. Instead, Hot Air threw a gangplank from the deck that sloped steeply to the ground instead. Most of the party just glid down to the ground. Twilight started down the gangplank but changed her mind when she tripped on a crosspiece, flapping away and gliding the rest of the way, swinging her luggage clumsily through the air behind her. She turned around just in time to see Applejack stepping off the end of the gangplank, her magic holding it steady.
After her was Rarity, biting her lip as she picked her way down the plank, while levitating several neatly stacked suitcases behind her. Lumen and Veris were last, each with a couple suitcases that Rarity had them carry. Twilight frowned at what she was sure was somehow a breach of diplomatic relations.

They made their way down into the market street, where Lumen and Veris merged with the crowd of other Saddle Arabians. Twilight, Rarity and Applejack were dwarfed by the crowd, they were only about as tall as the market stands and benches scattered around the edges of the street, and Saddle Arabians streamed around them as if they were furniture too. Even the zebras tended to be slightly taller than Twilight and her friends. Fortunately, Lumen and Veris had their position marked from above by a spiralling Rainbow and Pinkie and glimpses of Fluttershy as she bobbed just above the crowd. They pushed through the crowd with varying degrees of success. Twilight heard a hacking noise and felt something wet fall onto her flank. She spun around and promptly ran into a pillar in front of her.
“Pardon me!” came a voice from the length of fur and scales in front of her.
“Ohh… Ah… Excuse me, sorry…” stammered Twilight, until the figure turned around to reveal large red pupils in luminous yellow eyes. Then her worried frown became a grimace, and she narrowed her eyes.
“Discord?! Why are you here?”
“Let's see…” said Discord, suddenly wearing some severe reading glasses and a powdered wig, and holding a scroll between his claw and paw. “I am to accompany you on your trip to Saddle Arabia, and… oh, nope, that's it.” He tossed the end of the scroll at Twilight, showing that it was almost totally blank. “Honestly Twilight, there's not a lot of subtext here, I’ll be ‘around’ for the duration of this little trip.” he finished, making quotes in the air and rolling his eyes in his once again bare face as the scroll he’d dropped rolled out of sight.	
“In any case, allow me to recommend that you keep nearer the ponies that love you…”
Twilight looked around, realizing only now that she’d been separated from her friends in the press. 	 	 	
“Isn't that where you leech your power from? Love, tolerance, friendship and all that?” Discord continued, accompanying the word 'leech' with a grabbing gesture from his claw. Twilight’s attention snapped back to him and she gave a cold stare as Discord straightened up and clicked the fingers of his claw. 	 	
Which meant that she looked very angry as she tumbled out of the air in front of the Ambassadors, Rainbow, Fluttershy, and Pinkie.
“Your excellencies!” crowed Discord, popping up in front of Lumen and Veris, “You seem to have misplaced one...” his eyes widened in mock surprise “no, three ponies from your entourage!” on 'three' the air simmered above Twilight and Rarity and Applejack dropped to the ground on either side of her, nearly hitting her. 
Twilight had forgotten what being teleported by Discord was like. His magic didn't feel the same as that of any pony she knew. If she didn't know better she'd almost say that she'd just happened to be floating in the air just then. It felt sort of like when you found something you'd lost in an unexpected place, only Twilight didn't ever lose complete track of her position. She should write this down.
Meanwhile Rarity and Applejack got to their feet and looked around, expressions of confusion soon replaced by glares at Discord, who was introducing himself, with much pomp and pretension, as avatar of chaos. The ambassadors were bemused, even more so as Rainbow piped up.
“Yeah, yeah, chaos and all that, but really he's just a big snake Twilight's babysitting.”
“S-s-snake?” Discord’s eyebrows shot up and he recoiled, becoming more snakelike as he did so and exclaiming with a forked tongue sticking out. “Really, if anypony needs a babysssitter, isn’t it the pony who can't find any better use for being an alicorn than ssskywriting?” He slithered around Rainbow, encircling her loosely.
“Pfft.” Rainbow made a face, but her eyes burned. “Don’t try to deny it, you’re with Twilight since you pissed off every other alicorn in existence. One step away from being stone again.”
Then Twilight widened her eyes in surprise, because Discord did something she’d never seen him do before. Well, technically, everything Discord did was something Twilight hadn't seen him do before, but it was predictably unpredictable and annoying. Now, Discord stopped and slumped out of the air, slipping from his pseudosnake form into a normal standing position. For a moment, he just stood there, eyes closed.
Just as Twilight began thinking about feeling sorry for him, his eyes snapped open and he turned, blood red irises focusing on her.
“Well… I’d sooner turn  myself to stone than suffer Twilight’s bad opinion.” Twilight colored, realizing he knew she'd almost cast nervefire. Discord snapped around to Rainbow, twisting in midair. “You, however… Well. Let's just say I’m not so fond of an alicorn whose primary talent seems to be petty annoyance.” He floated up above the newest alicorn and tilted his head down at her as he spoke, raising a single eyebrow. Rainbow had no choice but to look slightly up in order to meet his eyes. When she did, her horn almost grazed his chin.
Rainbow and Discord simply stared at one another for several tense seconds. Finally, Discord broke off and slithered away through the air to land by Twilight. Moments later, Rainbow began to be blown about in midair. Her teeth gritted as she tried to stay stationary, but her face otherwise slipped into an 'everything-is-fine’ expression which indicated, to anypony who knew her, that things were pretty far from fine right now.
“Discord!” Twilight exclaimed, “What did you do?”
Discord inspected a claw on his talon. “Oh, you know, just some ‘chaos and such’.” He looked up into Twilight's eyes “Nothing harmful of course. It will stop when she lands.” he turned his focus to the mare in question
If Rainbow heard him, she didn't indicate it, instead continuing to struggle against winds that seemed to blow up out of nowhere. Twilight felt a stray breeze lash at her face and closed her eyes, visualizing the air moving around Rainbow. It swirled unpredictably around her, looking somehow familiar. She'd just read about this… She stared into the vortex, recalling the Neighvier-Stokes equations she’d recently learned. This was Dales-Balear convection! If she could just lower the Dales number…
Twilight charged her horn, closed her eyes, and gave a quiet grunt of effort. Rainbow almost fell out of the air as the winds surrounding her stopped, then proceeded to do some loop-the-loops and aerial acrobatics. Twilight opened her eyes, still breathing heavily from exertion. She felt the back of her neck prickle and turned to see Discord looking at her with interest. It was an expression at odds with all the carelessness she associated with him. After a moment he caught her looking and composed his face into a reasonable approximation of disinterest.
The feeling on her neck persisted and she realized that the noise of the market had quieted around them. Scanning around her, she saw that her friends were surrounded by a circle of Saddle Arabians and a few zebras, taking in the drama. Lumen and Veris almost blended into it, being just a bit closer to the Equestrians and the draconequus than anypony else. Flushing at the awkward attention, Twilight addressed the two. “The palace?”
“Oh, right.” replied Lumen, “This way.”