Honeyed Pasture But here you come alone and crying, now you want to be my friend

Equally deadpan as Mal detailed the rain seemed to have no end, Raleska swept her gaze to the distant forests. The gloom of the rain obscured what she could only imagine was traditionally a very picturesque view: green valleys, dark shoulders of distant peaks -- all reduced to a cheerless grey haze by mother nature.

It occurred to her Mal was trying to make a joke, which earned the flicker of her eyes in surprise. He had not been like this last time -- but, then again, how much had she changed since their last meeting? In more ways than she knew.

"No." Raleska intoned, answering honestly enough. It was not her intention to be curt, but her succinct nature often made the Eyjolfur appear as cold and unfriendly as the coast she hailed from. Standoffish as she was, Raleska had a rare talent for emotional intelligence -- she could not leave Mal's upbeat change untapped. "What happened to you?" Raleska wondered why it was that everyone seemed to get dealt a better card in life than her -- certainly, time had been nothing but unkind to her, and as the years settled into her bones she seemed to only get harder, cocooned in a shell of life's misfortunes.. And here Mal was, looking like it hadn't rained for a month straight and life had been relentlessly kind to him...

What was his secret?