The boy rolls his eyes. “Why would I choose your hummingbird god if I refused the jaguar, the monkey and the shark?”
The old priest smiles gently. “And the eagle, no doubt. Maybe you won’t. But today, you must choose your path. Else, your father will choose for you.”
“But I don’t want to be a priest,” the boy says, quickly looking over his shoulder. His father hasn’t overheard. “The seventh son gets to be a wizard!”
“You’d prefer to become a wizard?” the priest asks.
The boy, all of ten years old, thinks hard, brow scrunched above his eyes. “I’m not so good with books. But the second son gets to be a general.”
“You want to fight?”
Again, his brow rises. “Not really. War sounds awful.”
“How about the third son then? A captain! Do you like the sea?”
He shakes his head vehemently. “I get seasick.”
The priest laughs, their ancient face creasing even more than the boy’s serious brow. “Not that then. A lord, like the first son?”
He looks towards his oldest brother, perfectly dressed, perfectly styled, always… perfect. “No.”
“What do you want?” the hummingbird god’s priest asks softly, making sure the lord won’t hear.
“The fifth daughter,” he whispers, “gets to dance for the gods.”
“I see,” they say, as if this was to be expected, as if there was nothing else the boy could possibly want. And there isn’t. They know. Some fifth sons are dancers, some fifth daughters are priests.
“In hummingbirds,” they say, rising as if to leave, “the males do the dancing.”
The boy opens his mouth to argue, then stops and gapes, realisation dawning on his face. He jumps up and, grabbing the priest’s hand, proudly walks towards his father.
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