Rainbow pulled out of a loop and went into a spin. She aimed for the sky and pushed the air like she intended to fly forever.
And she could! How cool was that? Rainbow thought it over. She was pretty darn awesome already, but with immortality in front of her, she could become, like, infinitely radical. That was amazingly awesome. Heck, she might have to recalibrate her coolness meter just to properly track herself. Awesome.
Rainbow didn't see any clouds above her and decided to let gravity indulge itself for a bit. Freefall had a calmness to it few non-pegasi could appreciate. There was never any pressure to perform when plummeting to the ground.
Her eyes closed and body relaxed, Rainbow considered just what eternity was. It didn't really matter to her, what mattered was after the next five to ten years. That was when she had pegged her retirement.
Rainbow hadn't needed to study history to know that a lot of the names she grew up hearing weren't Wonderbolts anymore. And she knew why, intimately. Like her, their bodies were finely tuned, high performance machines. They ran hard and strong and wore out. But unlike a train or whatever, it was a lot harder to replace parts on a pegasus. Rainbow had been looking at peaking at a young age, followed by a lifetime of muscle aches, soreness, fatigue, probably depression and an early grave. That was the price of being as awesome as she wanted to be. Live fast, die young.
Not anymore! Rainbow Dash had a princess-approved get out of old age free card, and not the kind that involved a crash and burn performance! She'd hit her prime and would stay there for...well forever! No early retirement, no decaying husk of a pegasus, no need to stop!
Well, she had to stop right now before she hit the ground. Rainbow opened her wings and angled into a cloud. She felt her muscles strain against gravity and imagined the outrage of the ground, denied its prize. She hit the cloud at a shallow angle and dug a trench into it. It tickled and she laughed, so she stuck a hoof out to one side. The extra drag put her into a spin. It didn't have anything on the dizitron, but it was still fun. She rode the high, giggling until she came to a stop, her mane mussed and body sweaty, barrel heaving as she gulped down air. The cloud was cool on her hot skin and everything was right with the world.
And why wouldn't it be? No retirement meant she could keep improving. There was no way she'd be able to improve the Rainboom in under a decade, not enough to matter, so she'd figured she'd peaked already. But more time just meant she could someday make it more awesome! Given enough time, she'd be so awesome nopony could come close to
Wait.
Wait wait wait.
She would keep getting more awesome. That was a given. So, someday, she'd be made Captain of the Wonderbolts. Even if they didn't, she'd be so much more experienced than the Captain that...it just wouldn't work. Wouldn't make sense.
And once she was Captain, she'd be setting a mark too high for anypony. There'd never ever be another filly to get inspired by an airshow and think "some day, that'll be me up there." Because anyday, it would be Rainbow Dash, the eternal Captain of the Wonderbolts.
She'd crush the dreams of countless foals before they'd even be born. She'd be too awesome. That wasn't cool. That wasn't cool at all.
Rainbow stared at the sky and let her tears fall. There was only one way out of it. Just one.
Rainbow Dash could never be a Wonderbolt. From now till the end of time.
One was Loyalty, fearless and true. When eternity offered dreams without end, she answered with duty and stayed with her friends.