A/N: Prompt: "years." 100 words exactly. Winner of 2nd drabble final challenge.

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The years have etched themselves into my heart like rings in a tree trunk. If you cored it, anyone could see: what I've been, what others have been to me.

So many rings regretfully thin, droughts when I was mean and no one but a fool would love me.

Then, the war. Then, her.

The rings growing thicker and thicker in direct proportion to my diminishing resistance: to her kindness, her intelligence, her scent, the sunlight on her hair. Her skin against my skin.

She's the only one who'll ever see, her eyes the only tool needed to core me.