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'Were lemondrops and gumdrops
Oh what a rain that would be...'

A pitter-patter of something across the protective barrier of the pod he dozed in, gentle drip drop noise that woke Itztenoch from his errant dream.

Never had his dreams been so vivid before, so enthralling, as they had become since touching down on the chaotic base of Earth. Enduring it's smells, it's foot-traffic...
Coming up far too close and personal with errant honking machines that seemed to ignore the fact that people...No, that they, in flesh covered guise? Were squishy beings that could suffer injury from their heaving metal forms, that such velocities when applied to squelch of, what he had learned were brakes, could cause such startled emotions....

Itztenochs thoughts on dreams shifted into something else, as the pit pit pit pat of dropped drips increased from a gentle smattering into a slightly more insistent 'thum'. As if the drops had gotten fatter. Marveled at how they slid, like sweet glaze, like condensed boba infused liquid down the outter layer of his 'home away from home'.

'Standing outside with my mouth open wide
Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah'

How the sight of it brought to memory a group of youths that he'd come across wandering in a park, singing merry tunes about the rain and all its sugary properties. How the young ones had so much energy in them, and the parents had seemed very grateful for when their small genetically mixed futures had less of it in them.

Surely it couldn't have been wrong from him to siphon off some of that overflow energy for his own? To add to the collective that would save their planet, to put into the stone? Everyone had seemed glad for it afterwards, for all that he'd been very careful to not be noticed.

The parents had sighed relief even! As the spiral of spinning children holding hands, had yawned and become less exuberant in their boisterous proclamation of 'rains made of candy'.

The lyrics of which had stuck so firmly in Itztenochs head...Ear worms they called them...and he did not want worms in his ears!! Nor his mouth, nor anywhere near his personage. Protein rich, dirt chewing, sacks of mindless twin-hearted organism's, that squirmed beneath the soil - ate the soil to make the soil. How they seemed to be both an invasive species of the head and also a snack in some places?

Itztenoch had researched them, had gagged for the sight of it....Just...No thank you....

The thought of the ear worm returning to his brain made him promptly sit up from his lull between rest and waking. The best way to dislodge it seemed to be to indulge in it, or to simply distract himself from it enough that it faded away from its nibblings.

So Itztenoch got up and moved out into the slow sky drizzle. Walked out into the rain and stared up into it - lilac eyes as open wide as his mouth. As he mirrored the motions that he'd witnessed from the children during their rhyming song.

Said ahhhhhh...

'If all the snowflakes
Were candy bars and milkshakes'

Wondered when the 'rain' would become saccharine and sugary sweet on his tongue. When it would become warm instead of cold and jarring against his skin. How it turned to snow and when that would become a milkshake? Because he very much wanted to try those - the humans raved of them - complained of the calories and incontinence that followed - and yet had stores full to the brim with them? So it must have been a thing where the pleasure was worth the suffering of it.

Much like the rain....

Itztenoch

The condensed water stung far more than it soothed, where it rolled into his eyes and smattered his cheeks. Cold fat droplets that splashed heavy over brow and nose, that Tenoch was surprised to find were slightly harder to get a mouthful of than he’d expected.

Blinked some of the torrent from his lilac gaze, like tears that lacked salt, his attention on the crying sky above detracted by a voice. Squint for the heavy gray overcast that failed to yield its bounty; Itztenoch spat what he deigned not worth swallowing, if only so it’d be easier to answer Nessa properly.

“Not us, per say, unless the sky yields a bounty?” Licked his lips of wetness and tucked slowly dripping strands of loose hair behind his ears, marvel of things, how his hair seemed to take water like a sponge - if only it were less annoying.

“I’m which case I’ll gather enough buckets to provide us with a feast from it - the ah…” pause to wonder if explaining what he was doing would make sense to anyone who hadn’t met ‘the children’.

Except he didn’t want to seem selfish - keeping a sweet secret for his own. All because he’d been craving sugar ever since that first taste of it.

“Supposedly - and I learned this from a very reputable source - but supposedly? The sky is rumored to yield rains full of lemon and gum. Except sweeter than that?” Soft humm over the pattering uptic of rain - “Maybe a control group is in order, or this could be the wrong kind of rain…they do have a variety of storms here.” seemed to him that earth held as many weather phenomena as it did flavors of tea.

A planet full of endless bounty and strange seasons…

Itztenoch

Pursed lips as he blinked furiously, drops from his eyes, from the tips of bangs that slid out and ran with newly wetted force of the sky pouring's. It was certainly something to consider, glancing from the sky, back to Nessa, and back to ---

Did he trust his source? He had to, it was in song, and children he had been told - were not the types who told lies. In fact they seemed the most gullibly honest of all that he'd crossed paths with so far. Why would they lie? Furthermore, what reason would those who'd sired them have to teach lies? Surely there had to be grains of truth buried within the foreign lyrics that refused to leave his ears.

"I trust my sources." Said with all solemnity, stern gaze turned from Nessa nd leveled back at the sky above. Mouth wide as he tried to errantly catch a few more drops, a dog chasing flies...

Paused in his futility to tuck his hair back more firmly and "I believe you're understanding it incorrectly. The lemons in question are not the acidic kind - they are likened to 'candy' and so would be sweet in nature, not sour." it was possible that the humans were simply terribly inaccurate when it came to flavor profiling. To distinguishing their saccharine nectar-like flavors from things that ran far more sour and bitter. "Do you not think the rain could be sweet Nessa...the water on this planet has innumerable applications - why would they treasure it so if it weren't a possibility that it could be transformative from the sky to the ground?" wince for the idea of 'acid rain', what a terrible thought, how would any of their species have survived without protective shielding from such a thing....

"Besides....what's the harm in it." brief coy smile as he flicked excess water her way, let it collect in his palm and run off the tips of his fingers in gently mesmerizing drips...

Itztenoch

"It tastes different, for one, and for another? It smells--" and the scent of it all, the feel of slowly getting drenched beneath fat, splatting drops of cool cloud-tears from above. It was nothing at all like what was described to him in any book, or maybe he lacked the attuned palette to know what things such as rain *should* have tasted like, in spite of his own imaginings and a very descriptive tune.

"--it smells so different than normal water, doesn't it? It's not just the taste." What came from the ground, and the streams, and in a cup served at the resteraunts with flashing neon lights and overwhelming amounts of steamy grilled flavors in the air.

It was the other thing he'd noticed about Earth. Maybe the most prominent thing even. Everything had a smell, every blade of grass, and torn leaf, and barky tree. For all that the sounds were plentiful enough to be maddening, the smells were even moreso a drain.

Except this -- this was less aggravating -- for all that he shivered after moments of standing and getting it in his eyes enough to be blinded by blinking it free -- the rain was nice. It's smell, it's strange pit-pat-patternless fall, it's taste. Tenoch braved it enough to swallow a mouthful, more, to swish it and spit it into the sodden earth at his feet and marvel at how it all blended and muddied there.

"Did you know, Nessa? I read somewhere that Humans in particular could smell rain even better than --- ah -- sharks? Yes. That they can smell rain better than sharks can scent blood. Maybe their tastes are as such -- that it's nothing to me, but that they find it sweet like candy?"

His hopes undashed, but steadily they deflated as his shiver increased and the dripping runnoff seeping into his hair became a mite bit uncomfortable.

"What do you think--it's at least different from a stream, right?" and he did manage a tightlipped smile that was only slightly soppy.

Itztenoch

He hummed thoughtfully, nodding after a moment in agreement, as yes, human senses of smell were wide left field of what their aimed goals on the planet were. He could admit that, even as he stepped soggily in a circle and blinked more drippings of the clouds from his eyes..

Maybe it was that clouds cried tears, and not candy?

"You're right as usual. Pragmatic---" and he was about to take his soggy hide back and leave his hope outside, his thoughts foregone conclusions of a failed hypothesis. Then Nessa prompted him, and the smile that stole his features while his thoughts whirled in a rapidly different direction than before, was a truly genuine thing.

What if this could be his project of the moment instead? Something to keep his mind busy until he felt like getting dry and back to sleep. Taming the rain. That and aiding a friend. Surely they had something around their site that could keep the rain from disturbing his team-members restful cycle. Some sort of plasma deflector, a shield, a sheet, a -- What did the humans use in this situation? Their homes were made to survive and weather their surroundings or else they would've fallen to ruin as a species long ago---

Umbrellas, that was the thing!! They splashed with them, sung in the sky-tears while carrying rods with shaped tarp on their backs. It was crude, needed improvement. He could possibly make swift work of --if not a thing to shield Nessas entire pod -- then at least some sort of apparatus that would keep the rain deflected from the face of it; then when she entered and exited she'd be dry.

"It's a new place with new sounds, we'll get used to them soon. Adapt. In the meantime though? I might not mind having a favor of yours to use..." he was already stepping off through the mist and congealing puddles clotted with grass and mud, working on a way to earn a favor from here right now. "Well see. Try and get some some rest, Nessa."