Chapter 18 The Easter Orc
The Easter Orc
Hazel
Nana didn’t have a great history with men. This was something I’d always known. But one night, over a shared bottle of wine and more chocolates than she’d usually accept, she gave me one piece of advice.
“The only man you’ll ever need will move the world itself for you. That’s the one you have to find.”
She’d been trying to help me with it for years, bless her heart.
Countless blind dates, introductions, strategic seating arrangements at charity dinners.
It all culminated with Ignatius Gray. But in the end, I’d done fine on my own.
Because my very own orc warrior had just won a magical competition against the Easter Bunny. For me. Because of me.
“Reynard is wrong, Hazel,” he’d told me the evening before. “Self-acceptance is beautiful, yes, but there’s no joy more powerful than that of love.”
I’d taken one look at him and known he was right. Even Grix, who cared only for results, hadn't argued with the plan. He’d been our strongest supporter. “I have to see this. It’ll be brilliant. My biggest client, stealing the Mantle of Spring. We’ll be earning dividends forever.”
Now, here we were, at the finish line of the race.
It hadn’t gone well for Brok. He’d finished it and done his best despite his terrible reindeer and the social media chaos.
But he’d ended in last place. He didn’t seem to mind.
Instead, he waited for the verdict, side by side with Barnaby and Vixen.
Wearing Brok’s own glamor amulet, I stood next to legendary entities I’d always thought were only myths. And I watched. This was it. The moment of truth.
Oberon descended from his platform, acknowledging all participants with an imperious nod. “Now, the Title will decide.” And it did.
Something was gathering. It was an old and patient warmth in the air that had nothing to do with sunlight. It should have frightened me. I was only a mortal, hiding in a place I didn’t belong. But this strange, powerful magic pressed against my skin, and it welcomed me.
Then the light came from everywhere and nowhere, all at once. Soft, golden, the color of spring sunrise spilling across the meadow. It gathered in the center of the archway, turned slowly, and began to move.
The crowd leaned forward as one. Barnaby clasped his paws together, ears pressed flat in desperate hope. Vixen stood up straight, their snout lifted, their tail curled in an elegant arc of confidence. Brok only waited.
The light moved to Vixen first. Of course it did. Their confidence didn’t waver, not even slightly. They simply received the attention as their due, amber eyes bright, chin raised. The crowd held its breath.
The light moved on. The sound Vixen made was so small and so quickly swallowed that I almost didn’t catch it. Their tail dropped an inch. Nothing else changed.
Barnaby perked up. “Please, please, please,” he whispered. The power of his Title lingered over him, making his fur stand on end. But in the end, it bypassed him, too.
Then it moved on to Brok. The golden warmth fell onto him all at once. For a single, endless moment, Brok swayed. I could have sworn that, under his green skin, he went a little pale.
Ultimately, he held his ground, just like he’d promised he would. A beat passed, and then another. The golden light faded entirely, settling into Brok’s skin. And Oberon lifted his arms and said, “Behold! The Easter Orc!”
Brok looked down at his hands, then at the crowd. His expression was exactly what I’d expected: not surprise, not triumph. Acknowledgment. The quiet recognition of a man who’d done the calculations and was now watching the output confirm what he already knew.
Then the crowd erupted. “The Easter Orc! The new Herald of Spring! This is unprecedented!”
Spirits of the forest were frantically taking photos and posting on their social media platforms. Everyone was vibrating to get closer, to see Brok better. “How?” someone asked from the crowd. “How is this possible?”
This was my cue. I unclipped my amulet from my wrist and stepped forward, now fully visible. “It’s possible because Spring embraces love.” I took Brok’s hand, entwining our fingers. “Even if it is between an orc and a human.”
Countless supernatural creatures were staring at me in shock. Love was powerful magic. Everyone knew that. But they likely hadn’t realized just how powerful it was until now.
“A human… It all makes sense now. So all those captions.”
“It was for her. Now it makes sense. The mushroom… The rock… All because of her.”
“Vixen and Barnaby never had a chance. It was always going to be the Easter Orc.”
Brok cleared his throat, and immediately everyone went silent. “I’m honored by the gift bestowed upon me. I won it through what I feel for Hazel. But to tell you the truth, I don’t want it.”
Brok’s voice carried across the meadow without effort.
He wasn’t projecting. He was just big and honest, like he’d always been, even in The Cocoa Bean.
“I’m an orc, and I’m happy with my nature.
But I entered the Herald Challenge because the only way to change something is to have the authority to do it. ”
He paused. Not for dramatic effect. It wasn’t his style. He was making sure the next words came out right.
“Barnaby has carried this alone for centuries. It nearly broke him. He shouldn’t have had to do it by himself.
” His eyes moved to Vixen. “And Vixen was shut out for bringing a different kind of joy. That was wrong. Spring isn’t one thing.
It’s warmth and surprise. Comfort and wildness. It needs both of them.”
That was it. No philosophy. No grand rhetoric about systems or fairness or the nature of joy. Just the problem, as he saw it, and the solution, as he intended to deliver it. The reality we’d understood together.
I loved him so much that my chest physically hurt.
Brok turned to Barnaby first. My favorite customer hadn’t moved since the Title had passed him by. He stood in the same spot, small and rigid, his ears flat against his head. His cream-and-gold reindeer stood close behind him, occasionally nudging Barnaby’s shoulder with its nose.
Brok crouched in front of Barnaby, so low that they were practically at eye level.
He’d always been enormous next to Barnaby, but now he seemed somehow bigger.
“You’re the best at what you do.” Brok’s voice was quieter now, but in the silence of the meadow, everyone could hear it.
“Comfort. Warmth. The kind of joy that makes people feel safe when everything else is uncertain. Nobody does that better than you.”
Barnaby snapped out of his trance, his whiskers trembling with emotion. “Brok…”
“But you were never meant to carry all of it. That’s what wore you down.
That’s what sent you to Hazel’s shop at midnight to eat truffles until you couldn’t move.
” A faint ripple of laughter moved through the crowd.
Barnaby’s ears twitched with embarrassment, but Brok pressed on.
“You don’t have to carry it alone anymore. ”
Brok held out his hand, palm up. The golden light of the Title gathered there, warm and concentrated, and then it split. Not violently, not with any sense of breaking. It divided naturally, as if it had always been meant to flow in two directions.
Half the light poured into Barnaby.
I could see the exact moment it settled.
The quiet grandeur of his magical nature returned.
Barnaby made a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob.
His eyes were enormous and wet, and his nose twitched so fast it was practically vibrating.
But the rigid tension that had lived in his frame was gone. He looked… at peace.
Then Brok stood and turned toward Vixen.
This was different. Barnaby was someone Brok loved. Vixen was someone Brok respected but didn’t particularly like. The distinction showed. He was tenser, his posture more rigid. But he’d made a decision, and he wouldn’t turn back now.
Vixen watched him with their chin lifted and their tail perfectly still. Their amber eyes gave nothing away. Perhaps they expected rejection or a taunt. After all, Brok had been on their opponent’s side.
But that wasn’t the point of our plan. “Your joy matters,” Brok said, the way he said everything. Like a fact, not a compliment. “Surprise. Cleverness. The part of spring that’s wild and unpredictable and makes people feel alive. That was never wrong. And now, there will be a place for it.”
The remaining golden light gathered in his palm and flowed toward Vixen. It changed as it moved. The warm, gentle gold sharpened into something brighter, pulsing with the energy of a wild spring rain.
When it reached Vixen, they flinched. Just barely, just for a fraction of a second, but I caught it. Their eyes went wide. Their claws glinted, the crystals adorning the polish seeming to sing. And Vixen, clever, unflappable Vixen, pressed a hand to their heart.
Brok lowered his hand. Both halves of the Title glowed, and he stood between the two Heralds with nothing. He’d given it all away. Every scrap of ancient magic and authority, handed off to the two people who actually needed it.
He was just an orc again. My orc. Standing in Oberon’s meadow with empty hands and the quiet satisfaction of someone who’d finished the job.
Barnaby burst into tears. Full-body, hiccuping, snot-producing sobs shook his entire frame and made his ears flap. He stumbled forward and tripped over his own paws. Then he recovered and leaped at Brok with the desperate trajectory of a very emotional projectile.
Brok caught him. Of course he did. He was the steadiest and most stubborn person I knew.
Barnaby buried his face in Brok’s chest and wailed. “You could have told me! I spent the entire race thinking my best friend had stabbed me in the back. I ate four emergency stress chocolates during the maze section!”
“That explains the time,” Brok said thoughtfully. “After all that training, you should have done much better.”
I was already crying. I couldn’t help it. Because Barnaby was happier now than he’d ever been while eating my chocolates, and it was everything I’d ever wanted.
Then Barnaby pulled back from Brok, sniffled twice with impressive volume, and turned to me. I extended my arms toward him, and he collapsed against me, exhausted.
There were no more words needed now. I only patted his fuzzy head, and it was enough for both of us. Maybe it always had been.
A shadow fell across my shoulder. Not Brok’s shadow. I knew the shape of that one by heart. This one was leaner, more angular. Vixen.
“Hazel. As ever, you never fail to impress.”
“I’m not the one who was impressive.”
It was true. In the big picture, I didn’t think I’d done that much. It was Vixen and Barnaby who’d fought for their dreams today, and Brok who’d defeated the impossible odds. But neither Barnaby nor Vixen seemed to agree with that.
Vixen shook their head. “Darling, you need to stop selling yourself short.” They stepped around to face me, and their expression was something I hadn’t seen on them before.
It was unguarded, just for a moment, the way it had been briefly in the bakery before they shifted into a fox and disappeared.
“You were the one who made it possible. Which is more interesting.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. With Vixen, I rarely did.
“I told you, didn’t I?” Their voice had the particular satisfaction of someone who had been right about something and intended to enjoy it. “Back in that dressing room. I said you looked like a woman with something important to say.”
“You were also trying to point me toward Isengrim at the time.”
“I can be right about two things simultaneously.” They glanced over at Isengrim, who was watching from a few feet away.
Something passed between them, quick and private.
“The numbers didn’t win today, Hazel. That was the point I was trying to make in your shop.
I just hadn’t anticipated the specific form it would take. ”
Barnaby pulled away from me just long enough to meet my eyes. “Vixen’s right. I like Brok, but dear gods, he’d have never figured this out on his own.”
Vixen’s mouth curved. “No. He would have challenged someone to physical combat as a negotiation strategy.”
“That was still on the table as of last Tuesday,” Barnaby confirmed.
The two of them stared at each other with the mutual bewilderment of people who had just accidentally agreed on something. At that moment, I could have sworn the golden light living inside them both flared a little brighter.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed the new, unexpected connection. Oberon shot Santa a sharp look, and the jolly giant just beamed back. “Isn’t this wonderful? Two kinds of spring. Coexisting. Both real. Truly joyful!”
At this point, even the ancient fae king had grown tired. “Quite right. The Title has spoken. We have two Heralds of Spring.”
By now, the spirits of the forest were just staring in silence.
They’d even stopped posting online, which was impressive in its own right.
Vixen flicked an ear, aware as always that they were the center of attention.
“I will agree, then, that the Osterhase isn’t that terrible. He put up a good fight.”
“You were much better than me at the CrystalGram part,” Barnaby pointed out. “Those filters… They’re almost as intimidating as Brok!”
As if summoned by Barnaby’s words, Brok stepped up to us and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “I’ll have you know that few things are as intimidating as I am.”
“At this point, Brok, your CrystalGram account disagrees with you,” Vixen drawled. “You’ve lost two titles today. That of Herald and that of fierce orc warrior.”
If it was meant to be a taunt, it didn’t come out like one. Brok shot me a wide smile, one that made his tusks stand out just right. “Oh, I don’t know… I think I didn’t lose anything. I came out the victor, no matter what.”
I couldn’t help myself. I kissed him because I could, because he was mine. If even Barnaby and Vixen had found their place and their joy, what more could I ask for?
Nana had been right. The right man moved the world for you. But the really extraordinary ones? They moved it for everyone else, too, and then acted like it was just part of the job.