Thorns

I am a fortress. My body is covered in shields, my wings made of metal. I am the ultimate defense. Little can pierce my layered steel skin.

The other pokemon look at me enviously. I am no mere spearow. I am Skarmory, the living armor. Wings? Steel. Body? Steel. Head? Steel. Legs? Steel. I can battle without fear. I cannot be harmed. I do not bear battle-scars, wounds. A tackle attack cannot dent my shell.

I think, that if you peeled it away, the sheets of thin steel that cover me, to see what was underneath, there would be nothing left. Just a hollow of nothingness.

We pay a high price for this, this curse of protection. Perhaps I would be a fearow, with feathers and a warm, living body. I don't know if I am alive. Who could tell, under the cold steel?

My flesh was torn away. From the moment I hatched, my body was impaled on thorns. Huge, thick thorns. Skarmory have large nests, many children, but we are rare.

Out of my five other brothers and sisters, only one other survived. The rest bled out their lives in the nest, our mother looking calmly on. Surely she could see they would not make it, could see that the rite of passage was too harsh for them. Of course, none of us made it easily, so perhaps she couldn't tell. But what would a skarmory be without its steel? Maybe they would have died anyway, or turned into nothingness without the steel to give them a body. Or maybe not, does it matter?

So the others look at me with envy, wishing they too had a skin of metal, not to be hurt, not to be shot. They think I'm so lucky, to have been born a steel-type.

Are skarmory born a steel-type, though? Not that they'd care. If I tried to explain, they would no doubt think they could become living metal too, would try to do the same. Thinking of a life without fear, without pain.

Never once realizing that while their own attacks cannot injure me on the surface, I am torn apart beneath, reduced to ribbons by the thorns.