{"id":3979,"date":"2020-10-21T17:25:45","date_gmt":"2020-10-21T17:25:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/?p=3979"},"modified":"2020-10-21T17:25:45","modified_gmt":"2020-10-21T17:25:45","slug":"bubers-basque-story-part-24","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/2020\/10\/21\/bubers-basque-story-part-24\/","title":{"rendered":"Buber’s Basque Story: Part 24"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSo,\u201d mused Kepa as he stared at the sky, \u201cthat thing he was holding, that de Lancre put in that box, was one of these zatiak, one of your pieces of magic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBai,\u201d answered Marina.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnd we got in the way. We stopped you from stopping him.\u201d Kepa turned to face Marina. \u201cSentizen dut. I\u2019m so sorry. Because of us, de Lancre has one more of the zatiak.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEz,\u201d replied Marina. \u201cI mean, yes, he does. But, actually, I didn\u2019t come here to stop him, not this time. I came here for you two.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maite spun. \u201cYou what?\u201d she exclaimed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Buber’s Basque Story is a weekly serial. While it is a work of fiction, it has elements from both my own experiences and stories I’ve heard from various people. The characters, while in some cases inspired by real people, aren’t directly modeled on anyone in particular. I expect there will be inconsistencies and factual errors. I don’t know where it is going, and I’ll probably forget where it’s been. Why am I doing this? To give me an excuse and a deadline for some creative writing and because I thought people might enjoy it. Gozatu!<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Marina sighed, her gaze lingering at her feet. \u201cI can\u2019t do this alone. I can\u2019t stop de Lancre. I\u2019ve been able to collect a few zatiak, but he\u2019s found more. At this rate, he will claim our magic for himself and who knows what he\u2019ll do then. And I can feel my mind\u2026 It\u2019s very hard to keep my mind in one piece when I\u2019m constantly jumping from one body to another, from one personality to the next. So many lives, so many worlds, each so different. I can\u2019t keep track and I fear my mind is starting to slip, starting to fragment.\u201d She looked up, first at Maite and then Kepa. \u201cI need help.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat does that have to do with us?\u201d asked Maite.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI need your help,\u201d answered a frustrated Marina. \u201cI need you to help me stop de Lancre.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maite laughed. \u201cAssuming for a moment that I believe your story — and I don\u2019t — how would we even be able to help you jump through time and stop a crazy French bastard from destroying the world?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cActually,\u201d Kepa interjected, \u201cde Lancre was — is — part Basque.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marina nodded. \u201cDe Lancre\u2019s aitxitxe, Bernard, was from Nafarroa. His original surname was Rostegui. I suspect it was through him that de Lancre learned about the magics that infuse the Basque Country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter!\u201d exclaimed Maite. \u201cI don\u2019t care if de Lancre was the most Basque person that ever lived! That\u2019s not the point!\u201d She turned away from Kepa and Marina, staring into the forest. Her hands were clenched by her side, her knuckles white. She took a few deep breaths before turning back to the others. \u201cLook,\u201d she said, forcing her voice to be calm. She looked at Marina. \u201cI simply don\u2019t believe your story, that you are jumping around time, chasing this guy, trying to find God-knows-what before he does. It goes against everything we know about how time works.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI understand your frustration,\u201d said Marina plaintively. \u201cI can\u2019t explain any of this. I didn\u2019t create the zatiak, exactly, they created me, created this ghost. I don\u2019t know how they exist, I don\u2019t know how I jump through time, I don\u2019t know how de Lancre does either. All I know is that I can, that he can, and I have to get these zatiak before he does.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDon\u2019t you already know how it all turns out?\u201d asked Maite. \u201cIf you can jump through time, can\u2019t you just go into the future and see what happens in the end?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marina shook her head. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t work like that. The zatiak create bubbles in time. When I jump to when and where one of them is, I\u2019m not aware of anything that happened before. I know my history, of course, but I don\u2019t know the history of the moment I\u2019m in. If you showed me a newspaper from today, I would forget anything it said once I left this time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIs that what keeps you and de Lancre from messing with history?\u201d asked Kepa. Maite glared at him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUste dut, bai; I think so,\u201d replied Marina. \u201cThe bubbles protect time and history from anything that de Lancre and I might do. We really can\u2019t disrupt history exactly. We interact with the people we meet — like you two — but once we are gone, time somehow forgets we were there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow are we supposed to help you then?\u201d asked Maite. \u201cEven if I believed you, the moment you leave, we won\u2019t remember you.\u201d She shook her head. \u201cNone of this makes any sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause, I would give you these,\u201d replied Marina. Kepa and Maite watched as a point of light appeared in Marina\u2019s chest, between her breasts, and then proceeded to grow until it was about the size of a saucer. Two small balls of light emerged from the glowing hole in Marina\u2019s chest, hovering for a moment in front of her before they settled down into her outstretched palms. \u201cThese two zatiak would let you help me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cSo,\u201d mused Kepa as he stared at the sky, \u201cthat thing he was holding, that de Lancre put in that box, was one of these zatiak, one of your pieces of magic.\u201d \u201cBai,\u201d answered Marina. \u201cAnd we got in the way. We stopped you from stopping him.\u201d Kepa turned to face Marina. \u201cSentizen dut. I\u2019m […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2549,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[864],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bubers-basque-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Artboard-1.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2sYNu-12b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3979"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3980,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3979\/revisions\/3980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buber.net\/Basque\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}