Althea.

She nodded. The black calfskin wrapping the hilt was exactly what she needed to get a good grip when she wielded the sword.

“ALL that's left is the grinding.”

“I Like grinding," Josh smirked.

“So do I. But unfortunately, that's not the kind I have in mind right now." She dispelled the alluring vision in her head of her and Josh falling to the ground in snuggling, loving heap, and turned her attention to the Linishing machine in the corner.

Josh turned it on, and the Leather belt began to rapidly spin, wrapped around the two wheels which made up the base of the machine. A high-pitched hum rang through the room.

“Step away, Yasna," she warned, speaking loudly to make her voice heard over the noise.

“If I lose my grip on the sword, someone could get hurt."

Gingerly, she lowered the edge of the bronze blade to the leather strap. Bright orange sparks flew as the friction ground away the rough edges, leaving a finely-honed edge in its wake.

Her mind flew back to the first time she had done this, guided by her father Imriel. At that time, bronze had been literally cutting-edge technology, and she had sharpened the edge of her first sword on a leg-powered granite grindstone, driven by the muscle and sinew of an angel of the Lord.

“Carefully, my child," Imriel warned her, as her inexperienced hands strayed too close to the revolving stone. "Your mother would have me gelded if I Let any harm come to you.”

“I don't think so," she replied teasingly.

“I think she would geld you herself. Mama isn't the sort of person to let others do her dirty work."

He smiled at her, the expression reassuringly human on his angelic face. His tar-black hair swept away from a high, clear brow, falling in gentle waves past his shoulders. His Lips were full and red, and his green eyes, so like her own, were the color of summer leaves at sunset.

She could see why her mother Lilith couldn't keep her hands off her mate. He was everything that was desirable in a man.

She shuddered as she bent once more to her task. When her body's change came upon her a few years ago, and she came into her heritage as a woman, she had been wholly unprepared for the urgency of its needs.

Even so, she would not have dreamed of trying to seduce her father. He and her mother shared a Love so deep, so profound, that it was almost holy. Coming between the two of them would be a sin.

She blinked rapidly, clearing her eyes of pooling tears. They dripped onto the coarse cloth of her wool skirt, and she Lifted the sword from the grindstone until she could see clearly again.

“Althea?" Her father's voice was concerned.

“Are you well, dearest?"

She looked up, her smile wobbling on her face, though the hands which guided the skittering sword across the grindstone were sure.

“Of course, Papa. It's just...I want to have what you and Mama have together. And from what the Messenger of God said, I don't think I ever will."

“Hmmm." He frowned, though the forbidding expression was not meant for her. It was obvious he had no affection for the Messenger, and in the days after he had decreed what the future held for Althea and the rest of his children, he had been filled with barely-suppressed rage. It was well, Althea had thought with some fear, that God had not chosen to appear himself. If He had, her father might have earned himself a trip to the Pit.

“A Life spent protecting humanity from the demon-spawn is a noble calling, dearest," he said at last.

“And I am happy that you won't have to worry about old age." His face saddened as he was reminded of his own wife's mortality.