Lexicon:Modern/Iskra
| Iskra | |
|---|---|
| Stage | Modern CLT |
| Pronunciation | /ˈis.kɾa/ |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Etymology | from Middle Iskrē, from Proto iskr |
| Related words | Nyfra, Chirwy, Stormharbor |
Iskra — the northern lichen that shatters into glass-fine shards on contact.
Notes
A pale crusting lichen on northern rock, blue-white and faintly translucent. It looks like frost and is frequently mistaken for it, which is how most people come to touch it.
It is brittle and breaks at any contact, releasing shards fine as glass. They are mineral, as native plant tissue generally is, and they do not break down. They work into the skin and stay there.
The pain is out of all proportion to the injury and it does not end. Months at the least. Years is ordinary. It fades and then returns — at cold, at heat, at a touch on the same skin — and it returns at full strength each time, sometimes decades later.
Nothing anyone has found does much for it. Cutting the shards out does not work; there are too many and they are too small. A person who has taken a bad Iskra burn has taken it for life, and Stormharbor physicians say so plainly rather than pretend otherwise.