Easter Bunny's Arc

Chapter 4 of 15

Easter Bunny touched the altar stone the next morning, checking if it had shifted during the night. His paw pressed into a gap where the ground met the base, and something sharp caught his fur. He pulled back and knelt lower. A carved face stared up at him from the dirt, half-buried beneath the altar. He scraped away soil with both paws until the full shape emerged—a mask painted in faded colors, its mouth open in what might have been fury or celebration. The wood had gone soft with age, but the carvings remained clear: birds, deer, foxes, all circling the mask's edge like they were being called to gather. Easter Bunny sat back on his haunches. Someone had held ceremony here before him, long enough ago that the forest had buried their work beneath layers of earth and root. He looked past the altar toward the tree line and saw what he'd never noticed before—a stone structure half-hidden by flowering vines, its doorway dark and quiet. The building stood small but deliberate, placed where the morning light would hit it first. Carved animals ran along the stone frame, their shapes worn smooth by weather. He walked closer and found a wooden pole lying in the grass beside it, tipped over but still intact. Bears and eagles stacked one above the other, their eyes watching the clearing. Someone had marked this ground as sacred, had built monuments to honor what they valued, and then they'd left or been forgotten. Easter Bunny carried the mask back to the altar and set it beside the remaining baskets. His ceremony wasn't the first. The weight he'd been carrying—the fear that choosing eight heroes while leaving others out made him cruel—shifted. Those who came before had also chosen what to honor. They'd built their markers, performed their rituals, and let the forest decide what would last. He couldn't honor everyone, but he could honor deliberately, the way they had. The mask sat there like permission, proof that ceremony itself mattered more than the impossible task of getting every choice perfect. He picked up the third basket, lighter now, ready to continue.