Kell's Legend

spun.
    Anu was crying as she looked up at him. “Vashell,” she said, gently, “I never said I loved you, I never loved you. You saw what you wanted to see. You pursued me for a decade, and never once did I give you reason to believe I returned your love; I was careful, because you were an Engineer Priest, and I knew to anger you would be fatal.”
    Vashell subsided, and sat again, staring at her, his expression unreadable. “I loved you,” he said, simply.
    “You captured me, had me beaten. Just now, you kicked me like a dog. How can you sit there and say you loved me?”
    “You betrayed me!” he snarled, spittle flying from his fangs. “You made me a fucking mockery amongst the Engineers; you have undermined my authority, lowered my rank, and you sit there and wonder why I strike you? That is my right, fucker. You have earned the beating, and much, much more. You are impure. Bad blood. A Heretic. No true vachine would have led an Engineer Priest on such a pretty dance.”
    “I led you nowhere! You are a fool, Vashell. Weak and stupid, brutal and savage. What could I possibly see in you to love? And you know what the worst thing is?” Her voice dropped, her face lowered, and her eyes were dark, staring up at him, submissive, subservient, and yet totally in control at the same time. “If I, a simple ill-blood, would not take you as wife, would not mother your children, then what pure-blood vachine would ever touch your corrupt and deviated shell?”
    Vashell did not reply in words, only in actions. He knelt by her, looking down at her pale white flesh, her slender limbs, her feminine curves, and with his clenched fist, claws curled tight, he pounded her face again and again, and took her head in his hands and rammed it against the floor, and even as she lay, bleeding, head spinning, not even understanding what hit her so mercilessly, so he suddenly halted and rocked back on his heels, crying a little, tears on his cheeks. He leant forward, low, and kissed her smashed lips, her blood running into his mouth like the finestKarakan import; he kissed her, his tongue sliding between her lips and his hand moving down her throat, over her breasts, stroking her belly, dipping between her legs to play for a while as she lay, panting, chest rising and falling in rapid beats, and she finally coughed, eyes flickering open…
    “Get off me!” she screamed, and Vashell rocked back, stood and swiftly left the cell. The door slammed shut, and Anukis was left, crying and alone, battered and bleeding, abused and frightened, on the cell floor.
    Kill me now, she thought. For I am nothing more than a slave.
    A female vachine entered after a day of bad dreams, and with a bowl of water and a rag, cleaned the blood from Anukis’s body with gentle strokes and soothing clucks. Anu opened her eyes, watched the vachine, an ugly specimen where the clockwork had become mildly disjointed, misaligned, and merged with the flesh of her face so that gears and cogs were openly visible against her cheeks, on her tongue, inside her bone-twisted forehead; whilst she was still vachine, it was considered vulgar to have such a show. And yet like any disease, this was totally uncontrollable.
    “There you go, little lady,” said the woman.
    “Thank you,” said Anukis.
    “Soon have you good as new.”
    “What’s your name?”
    The vachine smiled. “I am Perella. I’ve been assigned by Torto, one of the five Watchmakers, to tend you during your stay.”
    “Where am I?”
    “The Engineer’s Palace, of course.”
    Anukis groaned. When you entered the Engineer’s Palace, as one such as she, it was a rarity you left. At least, not with the same number of limbs, cogs or brain platters.
    “Do not fret,” said Perella, kindly. “I’m sure everything will be all right.”
    “You are kind.” Anu’s voice was stiff. “But can I ask, do you know why I’m here? I am impure. I cannot take blood-oil. I am a Heretic.” She bowed her head, accepting her shame.
    “To me, you are just another vachine.” Perella smiled. “It is my understanding that your…condition, comes through no fault of your own. It’s a simple unmeshing, something over which you have no control—despite what religious fanatics might believe. Shh. Someone approaches.”
    Footsteps slapped the metal walkway, and Vashell appeared. He smiled warmly at Anukis. “It is good to see you well.”
    “What?” she snarled. “You beat me unconscious and arrive to make