Always
It was expansive.
The Time Variance Authority was an expansive loop of towers and carriages that flew without pegasi. There was a void; a nightsky without stars that blanketed above even the tallest of castles. It was endless and yet it was so limited, just as the TVA was. They had all of time and space in their grasp and yet they could only interact to prune it all, over, and over, again.
Lyra leaned on a pillar to glance over this nightmare of a realm that only worked to prevent the stories, let alone the lives, of ponies to blossom.
“And that is why you must come with us,” said a mare in enforcement armor, “To join us. I don’t know how, but I am sure I can convince the counsel to allow variants!”
From the PSA Lyra saw on her first arrest, she knew of a war.
A multiversal war that took place “eons” ago, so a grand total of who-knows-how-long. That alone, even if it would have been the end of existence itself, was enough for the “all knowing Time Keepers” to emerge and force order through a single, “sacred” timeline. Anyone who dared do something different, such as the night she met Twilight Sparkle on the thousandth sun celebration, was when a pony was deemed a “variant” and responsible for a new timeline. A new timeline, in turn, would cascade into another ‘multiversal war’.
“I don’t want to, Bon Bon,” began Lyra, only for the other mare to stop her.
“You know that is not my name. I'm Hunter B15, please refrain from–”
“Bon Bon, I won’t do it. I know what happens to those timelines you prune, my timeline, my existence, my life that you pruned!” Lyra huffed.
The other mare put a hoof on Lyra’s shoulder, “Lyra, please listen to me for once. You have been running for twelve years and that is only a blink in my existence, I need you to calm down and–”
“Shut up, Bon Bon!” Lyra snapped, “I need to tell you something.” With a hoof on Bon Bon’s shoulder, she proceeded. “You are a variant,”
The mare chuckled. “Not this again–”
Lyra flared her front hooves, “It’s true! I have lost the evidence—but that recording, Judge Twilight was with the real ‘Time Keeper’, some pony I think is more ancient than any of you! If I just had more time, I can–”
“Lyra,” the mare dropped her head, sighed, then raised her head back up, “I believe you. Now, if you can just come with me, I can keep you safe for just long enough to convince the Counsel to hire you as an analyst.” with her hooves locked to Lyra’s, the mare looked her in the eyes while barely fighting her tears. Her voice shaked, “If you can just let me… save you, you can live for as long as you’d like and we could possibly even, I don’t know. Protect the sacred timeline… together?”
Lyra looked back at those eyes. She knew the mare was lying, that she still believed in the dogma the orange-clock AI had been providing for all this time beyond her comprehension. She felt, for just a moment, a tinge of guilt. A moment where she wondered, genuinely, if she wanted this too. With only a squint from hesitation, she forced herself extracted from the mare’s hoof and jumped off the balcony.
With time necessary to do anything but lie to Bon Bon, Lyra pulled out her tempad to a time and place she kept for a long while.
Sweetie Drops hummed to herself as she washed yet another dish. She had only moved in a month ago but was all ready acquainted to a few ponies thanks to the resident party pony.
Before she could move onto her next task, a yellow wall whirred into existence. Her jaw dropped and a dish broke on the floor. Without warning, a mare screamed and launched through the whirring wall and slammed into her.
After an exasperated breath, the other mare explained, “Now, if you can just wait for–”
Sweetie Drops screamed when a third mare appeared. She looked exactly the same as Sweetie Drops but in some sort of safety armor, a helmet, and “B15” as her cutiemark.
“Lyra,” said the other mare from the whirring wall, “Why does this mare look exactly like me?”
“Bon Bon,” Lyra stood up, “This is you. From the Timeline.”
Sweetie Drops shook her head. “What is going on? Why and how in Tartarus are you in my home?!”
Lyra proceeded to B15, “You are a variant from the Sacred Timeline. You have been kidnapped by this pony beyond time, beyond the TVA, and had your memory wiped. If you come with me, we can stop whoever is behind all of this! We can free all of time and space itself and figure out if this multiversal war even exists!”
“Lyra,” said Sweetie Drops and Hunter B15, only to glance at each other with confusion.
The whirring wall disappeared. As Lyra click-clacked on the tempad, she continued, “If you come with me to an apocalypse, no pony will know where we are. We can shelter and just talk it out for as long as need, as often as we need. But we got to hurry because–”
Sweetie Drops gasped as another three whirring walls appeared and more ponies in enforcement armor, this time with glowing batons along with Twilight Sparkle in a light brown suit and a black tie approached from behind.
“Lyra Heartstrings r35, I hereby arrest you for crimes against the Sacred Timeline. Take the Sweetie Drops, too, along with the compromised hunter.”
Lyra grabbed B15 by the hoof and pulled her into the tempad door.
It has been twelve years, twelve loops, on a world that was doomed to die. They talked extensively about the existential weight of it all. After a long time of convincing, Lyra took Bon Bon through the tempad door.