Surely my life awaits, whichever way I go from here, and whether I go alone or not. The cacao man smiled too, but ironically. "Yes, at your age, many… - Gary Jennings

The building themselves, from the distance, were dark and indistinct of contour, but the lights, ayyo, the lights! Yellow, white, red, jacinth, all the various colors of flame—here and there a green or blue one, where some temple's altar fire had been sprinkled with salt or copper filings. And every one of those shining beads and clusters and bands of light shone twice, each having its brilliant reflection in the lake. Even the stone causeways that vault from the island to the mainland, even those wore lanterns on posts at intervals along their reach across the water. From our acáli, I could see only the two causeways jeweled chain across the throat of night, with the city displayed between them, a splendid bright-jeweled pendant on the night's bosom.
"Tenochtítlan, Cem-Anáhuac Tlali Yolóco," murmured my father. "It is truly The Heart and Center of the One World." I had been so transfixed with enchantment that I had not noticed him join me at the forward edge of our freighter. "Look long, son Mixtli. You may experience this wonder and many other wonders more than once. But, of first times, there is always and forever only one."

No man ever took better care of his life. He lived only to go on living.
I waited for more, but he said no more, so I asked, "What became of him, Master Cuachic?"
"He died."
"That is all?"
"What else ever becomes of any man? I no longer remember even his name. No one remembers anything at all about him, except that he lived and then he died."

To command respect and deference and privileges reserved for the nobility, I need only dare to be a noble.