The Sky's the Limit

by aurorablaze

Fame

Rainbow nonchalantly streamed along the sky, her 'Fluttershy-is-The-New-Face-of-Advertising' banner tasseling behind her. She, however, found three hindrances - one, it was the crack of dawn. Celestia had barely began to raise the sun, so the land was cold and pretty dark. She should still be asleep now, in her nice cozy cloud bed, blissfully grazing the grasses of dreamland. Another was the fact that she had to go at the speed of a snail to capture the 'magics' of this flimsy shopping tag. She might as well fall asleep here... If it wasn't so cold. Having to actually tow this thing along came very slimly on top of these annoyances. Sure, Fluttershy was one of her best friends, but it didn't change the fact that she was getting paid to do this. Fame and fortune were more of her type of thing, not this scardey cat's!
She couldn't imagine how timid little Fluttershy had even gotten the spine to do something as big as this; she was everypony's idol, the publicity rates were huge! Dash couldn't even turn around without hearing about Photo Finish's new star, without bumping into a crowd of fanfillies, without seeing her face, even. Nowhere was safe from her - Ponyville, Cloudsdale, Canterlot, take your pick, everywhere was bustling with the presence of Fluttershy, both aurally and visibly. Dash was willing to bet that even the local critters in the Everfree would be babbling in their little critter language about her too.
How she'd love to be in her friend's horseshoes, to be the next biggest thing. The fame, the attention, the bits... How she'd love it all! Dash could picture it now.
The spotlight would be shining on her, capturing the attention of the audience. They knew this was the pretold new Wonderbolt member, who was accepted immediately after her audition. Having saved Equestria from all ranges of evil, being a vital part in the functioning of the mythical Elements of Harmony, being the winner of too many major competitions to count, personal friends of the two Princesses and just generally all-around being awesome, she was a mare more than worthy of having her name go down in the history books.
With Spitfire and Soarin' at each flank, they would simultaneously take off into the air, with a background of extravagant fireworks and confetti withal, they would then preform an extremely complex, skillful routine that would leave the crowd awestruck. To finish, Spitfire would give Rainbow a nod, and with that signal, Dash would leap high up into the night sky and preform a triple... no, a quadruple Sonic Rainboom, finishing with a magnificent Brocade Barrage. Even her new teammate Wonderbolts would be amazed at her skill, having only expected one small Buckaneer Blitz, while the crowd would be going absolutely wild - Canterlot nobles and hayseed farmponies alike! They would shower her with adoration, diamonds, bits and declare her the immediate, worldwide #1 pegasus... !

Dash wittingly crashed into an apple tree, effectively ending her rather unrealistic, but not impossible, daydream. The advertisement smothered her to the leafy prison of branches, before it slowly dragged her to the ground, landing her on her haunches. She seemed to have instinctively flown towards Sweet Apple Acres in her dozing, and gone off her directed flight plan. Oh well.
Rubbing her head, she glanced around quickly, taking in her surroundings. She seemed to be smack in the middle of a sea of apple trees - perfect. After a short inward debate, she smoothed back her mane and got to her hooves. This was another crash that never happened, and she was still awesome.
Taking back to the air, she tugged at the banner's cord with her hoof, as an attempt to bring it up to her. It was heavier than it looked; since she had a flying start before, not to mention with her astounding athletic ability making the task simple, she hadn't noticed it.
Successfully having made it airborne after a few tugs, she surveyed the advertisement while resuming her slow journey. Dash had landed on it in some 'forgotten incident', as well as having it rubbed against the orchard's grassy floor, and some of the paint had gotten smudged as a result. Since it wasn't mainly blurred on Fluttershy's face, it should still be fine.

After what seemed like hours of alert but casual vigilance [as alert as one can be in the early hours of morning], she finally caught sight of the orange farmpony she'd been looking around for.
Rainbow also noticed that she, too, the ever sensible, down-to-earth earth pony, had also gotten caught up with the Fluttershy phase. Applejack was preparing her sales stall for the market, as Rainbow had seen her do many times before, but this time her stall had gotten a new fashion upgrade. Each basket sported its own portrait of Flutters carrying baskets of apples... Dash had to hold back a snicker. Talk about original.
She had to admit, she was feeling a little jealous. Where did AJ have the portraitures of her when she won the Best Young Flier's competition, not to mention the Best Young Racer's derby, as well as all the other awesome competitions she had won with ease? She had been all over the papers those days. She knew, because she had all those papers framed in her cabinet. Perhaps AJ was keeping those sketches dusted and polished until she was a Wonderbolt.
Her ego was reinflated.

Nevertheless, Dash made a mental note to go visit her friend later on. The pegasus doted on the earth pony - Dash considered her to be one of her closest, bestest friends she'd ever had. AJ was so easygoing, and such a good pony. So dependable and honest, not to mention a serious athlete. She was perfect for Dash, and completely relatable. She started to feel guilty for being such a spoiled sport; AJ would never think of dissing down Fluttershy like she had just done. Applejack would be happy and immensely proud of her friend. Fluttershy should be just as important to Dash as the workpony was, considering that Dash had known them both since foalhood and up. She couldn't help but get jealous sometimes of her self-proclaimed sister pegasus.
This time was one of those moments.

Rainbow Dash leisurely drifted along, upon noticing the cowpony would soon notice the prismatic pegasus overhead. AJ was just after putting her last apple basket into place in her Fluttershy clad sales stand, and would no doubt start taking it all apart soon for Macintosh to take to the market. Big Mac would often be the one bringing the cart to town, but it was almost always AJ selling their produce. Rainbow didn't understand why she seemed to be OCD like this; wouldn't it be easier to just set up the first time at the market, with no requirements of setting up at home first for a false audience? Dash noticed that not many ponies usually came by the farm, unless they needed one of the Apples, or perhaps a stock of vegetables or two, so it made no sense to her for AJ to continuously arrange and rearrange her product stand.
Whatever.

Closing her eyes, she stretched her forelegs out and dragged the banner along at a faster rate, making the sheet billow and waver as she did so, maintaining on looking completely casual. She had had some other 'forgotten incidents' of this stupid piece of cardboard yanking her in various directions, which she did not want a repeat of here; sure, she had somewhat gotten used to pulling it, but the possibility of a strong, sudden blast of wind never faded.

She was glad to officially state to herself that she had succeeded with putting a display of ease in trailing this banner along behind her. Even while she was dragging pieces of cardboard around the sky for bits, she was still awesome.

She couldn't really help but hope that AJ had seen her stupendous effort. Since Dash had been concentrating on looking cool, she hadn't thought to say hi to the farmpony - she shrugged it off, concluding that Applejack always initiated the greetings anyway. Dash couldn't go back and say hi to her, after she tried so hard to put on her performance. For some reason, she just loved AJ's attention. She would prefer to hold the gaze of the captivated farmer rather than a crowd full of... cheering fans. Screaming her name, begging for encores...
... Now that she thought about it, perhaps more like a bleacher full of fans.
Well. She could settle for a stadium full of fans, with Applejack and her other 5 best friends watching.
The princesses, if not Rainbow herself, would grant them front line seats, and all of the girls would have brought their own little token of support.
Pinkie would bring her megaphone hat, and her foam finger. Rainbow bet Applejack would crank out those 'Rainbow-Dash-Is-My-Hero' posters that Dash totally knew she had, Twilight would cast some magic fireworks spell or some other egghead means of cheer, Rarity... could design cheerleading outfits!
Rainbow Dash began to wonder, how would AJ look in a-

Dash quickly realized that somewhere along her wandering thoughts process, her wings had decided to slow down, and gradually stop flapping altogether, only very gently hovering her in the air. She didn't know what gave her the awareness in the first place, maybe it was because of her already flared-in-flight wings attempting to flare themselves further in another manner, or maybe the fact that a heavy, cardboard billboard was suspended in the air behind her, which now was complying to the forces of gravity.
Rainbow was, quite elegantly, dragged to the orchard floor for the second time that day, with no doubt of further falls to come. She sounded her landing with a refined thud.
Having become enveloped in the floppy advertisement, she sighed, and grudgingly lifted the paper off herself, rubbing her sore head. Her cranium seemed to be taking quite a beating today; not only from the thinking, but from the blows she had received from uncooperative trees and the rock hard ground. Fighting these incidents off as 'forgotten' was futile now. She had to pony up; she was a full-grown mare! Giving in, she started to try a different tactic.
"I meant to do that...."