MOTECUHZOMA
            Unpack your thoughts. Be free and frank with me.
            Pretend yourself my junior cabinetman,
            For my own court is often at a loss.
            What vague agenda does this fleet announce?

TEUHTLILLI
            They masquerade as peaceful legates sent
            To haggle wares and flaunt their god, no more.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Ridiculous!
      
TEUHTLILLI              My sentiments as well.

MOTECUHZOMA
            Then what’s your own misgivings of their aim?
            Don’t gild the pill for me. Who are these men?

TEUHTLILLI
            I’d bank they’re vigorous, new, cruel foes,
            Now swiftly winging from the Eastern Sea
            To spoil, maraud, shed sheathes and buccaneer.
            We’ve Mayan authority to warrant this,
            Hence their determination for the fray.

MOTECUHZOMA
            But I have poor rapport with Mayaland.
            What do my coastal subjects make of this?

TEUHTLILLI
            They call them minor, maverick deities,
            As yet unknown, yet fancied devilish.

MOTECUHZOMA
            And what if they will prove, as prophesied,            
            Our long-lost rulers coming home?

TEUHTLILLI                                                Perhaps.