So there it was. The sheep had intermingled with the others and he would have no help in separating out the ones he had selected. As they walked up to the grazing area he felt some trepidation as he peered through the masses looking for them. He wanted desperately to prove himself. He knew that his father knew each intimately and would also recall exactly. Self-doubt was rising within him. His brothers had smirked at the challenge, well aware that it was too arduous.

Deus roamed the shifting body, easily guiding the ram, the lambs, and the first dozen ewes to an area separate from the others. But the difficult part was pending as the finest sheep departed, leaving the better of the mediocre. Many were almost identical. One by one he made his hesitant decision, trying partly to remember his past selection, trying partly to choose once again the finer animal, hoping it would turn out to be the same.

He took several minutes to find the last, knowing that the nineteen previous must have been right or his father would have checked the procedure.

At last he made his pick, moving slowly with it, only easing it along as he kept watch with his side vision, prepared to nonchalantly let go of his beast in favor of another should his father's facial expression betray that he had chosen wrong. That look never came and Deus was forced to walk the ewe to the smaller group without indication.

Zeus came up to him, his reluctant face cracking into a slim smile.

"Well done, boy."

Deus was overjoyed, his insides churning with happiness carefully concealed so as not to raise the wrath of the brothers who had been rooting for his failure.

Zeus charged his boy with attending to the every need of his flock, protecting it from predators, both man and beast, tending the sick and injured, guiding it to the finer pasture, and returning home in three days with the flock in better condition than that in which it left.