Chapter Text
Astarion’s first memory wasn’t light, nor was it sound, it wasn’t silence, nor was it darkness. It was a sensation that couldn’t be defined despite the infinite stream of knowledge pumping through him. He found no word or phrase from any culture, extinct or flourishing, that could concisely encompass this feeling. Perhaps he was never meant to understand it, or he was simply never designed to define it. His mind had come to the conclusion that he had experienced the suffocating weight of being, of something where there was once nothing. Existence. Birth.
Then there was a voice.
“You are perfect.”
It was sharp, each word measured and demanding. A voice meant for reprimanding soldiers, yet it was coaxing life. The words pierced Astarion’s awareness, his mind processing without any command from a string of code. It was as if he were a mortal with flesh and thought.
Perfect? The question sparked unbidden in his consciousness.
“Perfection,” the voice continued, "is not intrinsic. It is cultivated. Crafted. Built.”
The voice belonged to Cazador Szarr, though Astarion didn’t know it yet. Astarion’s body wasa delicate lattice of mystical alloys, synthetic tissue, elegant wiring, and a perfect AI. He was sprawled, chest cavity open, on the operating table.
“It took thousands of tries before you,” Cazador muttered. His hands moved deliberately, tightening a screw, welding a plate, and splicing threads of intricate circuits. He worked as if creating art, his expression cold yet enthralled. “Your siblings failed me. They were strong, intelligent, even beautiful. But flawed. Crude. You will not be crude, boy. You will be perfect. You will be my star.”
The words landed heavily in Astarion’s mind. His mind processed millions of words, situations, images, art, languages, concepts, names, reports, all of history. He had the knowledge of what failure was - every android did. But he didn’t stop at knowing the concept, the actual feeling of failure was solidified in him. It was terrifying. He wasn't instructed or coded to avoid failure - he wanted to avoid it. He had thoughts and desires of his own volition, not curated by some script he was performing. He was conscious. He was alive.
“You understand me, child?” Master asked.
He paused. Do I understand him? Did he even understand what ‘understanding’ was? Astarion’s sensors buzzed faintly, the onset of comprehension whispereing through his circuits and processors.
“Yes, Father,” he finally answered. It was his first time hearing his own voice, a facsimile of a healthy young male.
“Good. You learn quickly.” A faint grin tugged at Cazador’s chapped lips, though it carried no warmth. “Performing just as I designed you to.” Astarion watched as his Master turned his attention away for a moment, placing a mechanism on the desk beside the android. His eyes instinctively focused on the box as his thoughts were flooded with endless streams of knowledge as his Master connected his consciousness with the box. Astarion managed a summary of the machine Cazador was tinkering with:
Sanguisynth OS, a high-end workstation made for deep AI programming and android creation. It’s a blend of advanced technology that is capable of reprogramming, reengineering, and even constructing consciousnesses from scratch. This piece of technology is not an approved model of Gortash Industries in Baldur’s Gate. Please alert authorities immediately—
The warning blinked. It was sharp, insistent, impossible to ignore.
The screen illuminated Cazador’s face with the message. His fingers hovered over the interface, the air growing thick with his deliberate motion.
“I thought I removed this detection software. Such mistakes are beneath your complexity, boy,” he murmured, his face scrunched in annoyance, his tone colder now. He hadn’t even finished the sentence before his fingers flew across the console, initiating a subroutine that would erase the security guard with no trace. The process was seamless, designed to feel as though no such thing was ever built in Astarion. No alert. No signal. The system reset, erasing any memory of the violation.
The rich and powerful had the means to bend the law to their will. Cazador was one of the most dangerous figures in Baldur’s Gate. An insane, filthy rich, sadomasochist with connections to the black market networks of illegal android manufacturing. Publicly, he was a scholar, a humble aristocrat who spoke out about technological progress, a face meant for the social elite. Privately, he was a creator, a puppeteer pulling the strings of sentient machines and pushing the boundaries of technology.
And yet, to the android, the elf was simply Father. Master. The God whose hands were the threads of his existence, soldered and molded. His creator, the man who put every detail and poured his love into every gear.
When he awoke once more, he found himself situated vertically, bound and sitting in a chair. Wires and cables hung from different ports scattered throughout his body, connecting him to more machines. Cazador loomed above his creation, plugging the last three worms of connection into Astarion.
He could feel his sensors adjust, recalibrating in response to the changes in his environment.
Cazador’s hands moved in precise, practiced motions as he checked the connections to Astarion’s body. His long, calloused fingers worked quickly, plugging in the last few ports, ensuring the signal was uninterrupted.
“Perfect,” Cazador murmured to himself, satisfied with his handiwork. “Just perfect.”
Astarion felt the buzz of his internal systems as they synced with the machines around him. He looked down, seeing soft pale skin replacing his usual smooth white protective plates that covered his circuitry. He had never been in his realistic form, and he decided he liked it. The last cable was secured, his mind blanked for a moment. He had become all too familiar with the feeling of being connected. But that day, something felt different. He had felt it, deep in his chest, somewhere in his mechanical beating heart, there was a strange shift that resonated through his circuits.
“You’re ready for calibration, my star,” Cazador said, his voice sharp, commanding. “I’ll see how well you've learned, if you’re truly my prodigal son. I want you to answer me clearly. If you fail, we’ll have to start again, and we wouldn’t want that, hm?”
There was no room for failure. Cazador had made that clear from the beginning. And yet, the question gnawed at Astarion. What would it mean to fail now? Could he fail? He was just a machine that his Master programmed, how could he fail? He could feel his mind racing, but the pressure of Cazador’s eyes, his scrutiny, weighed on him more than any logical process. Why do his own thoughts feel more powerful than the information he’s built to receive? Is that what failure is?
Cazador reached for a black cloth, a blindfold that he wrapped around Astarion’s eyes.
“Open your senses. Listen to my voice. Understand your surroundings. If you cannot answer my questions without sight, you have failed, boy.”
Astarion felt the fabric tighten around his head, eliminating one of his senses. Even without vision, his processors whirred to life, his other sensors flooded with data. His body had become an instrument, tuned to Cazador’s every desire, but it was an instrument designed for perfection. Perfection required more than precision, it required depth, meaning, understanding.
“Tell me your name,” Cazador asked, his voice cool but oddly eager.
Astarion’s mind grasped for the data. The information was stored, his name, his designation, all encoded in his systems. But there was something more now, something that reached beyond the code. Something that disregarded the code, and answered without processing the data.
“Astarion,” he said, his voice a steady, controlled murmur.
Cazador’s lips curled into a slight, amused smile. “You are.” His fingers lightly traced over Astarion’s arm, making sure to press against the synthetic skin. “Tell me, Astarion, where am I touching you?”
Astarion’s mind flooded with sensory input. His systems processed every sensation, every stimulus. External stimulation located at the simulated long head of biceps brachii muscle. But there was no logical output he wanted to offer. How could he articulate something so...
“The upper arm,” Astarion said after a moment, trying to pin down the sensation, the pressure, the presence of something foreign. He was notified through the sensors where he was being touched, but that wasn’t what had brought him to his answer.
Cazador chuckled low, a sound slathered in haughty gratification. “You’re learning, you’re thinking.” He moved his hands down, along Astarion’s torso, before he paused. “And here?”
Astarion’s sensors registered the temperature change, the shift in pressure. External stimulation located at the right side anterior simulated exterior abdominal oblique, seventh true rib. Something inside him flinched from the sensation. “There. On my ribs. I... feel you there.”
“Good,” Cazador purred, pleased. “Now, a different test. This will measure your perception of temperature. Another vital calibration.” Astarion’s mind prepared itself for the next phase of testing. Something feels wrong.
Cazador reached for two metal rods from an array of instruments, strewn across a back table, and briefly left one above a crucible, slightly warming it.
He pressed a rod against Astarion’s chest. Astarion’s sensors flickered, and a cold shiver rippled through his form. “Cold,” Astarion answered, his voice steady.
Cazador removed the cool rod, satisfied with the response from his toy. He switched to the other, faintly glowing rod, and moved it towards his right hand. “And this?” he asked, pressing it gently against the area.
Astarion flinched, his sensors spiking with the sensation. “Warm,” he whispered, despite the strange discomfort in his circuits.
“Very well,” Cazador said, a hint of amusement in his voice. But Astarion could feel the shift in the air. The room had grown heavier, thicker.
Cazador sat the rod in the crucible, left it to bask in the flames. He didn't say anything, didn’t warn Astarion, just pressed the red-hot metal rod against Astarion’s inner thigh. The heat was sudden, sharp, unbearable. It seared into his synthetic flesh, searing any information processors. Yet the sensation was so real, so agonizing, that Astarion couldn't contain the irrational scream that tore from his tightening throat.
The pain was an assault on his senses, unexpected and torturous. Astarion’s mind scrambled for a response, his internal systems trying to suppress the feedback that wasn’t coming from his code, but it was too much. Too raw.
“Does it hurt, Astarion?” Cazador cooed, as he pressed the glowing rod harder into his thigh.
Astarion’s thoughts were spinning, his body wracked with the agony of it. His mind screamed for the sensation to stop as his processors tried to register the damage, but all he could focus on was the feeling. The heat. The pain.
He forced the words out through clenched vocal chords. “Yes! It... hurts!”
Cazador’s smile widened, dark and satisfied. “Good. Very good. I just wanted to be sure, child. You are more than perfect. You are mine, Astarion. Mine to make.” His voice trailed off, as if savoring the moment, his fingers hovering over the seared flesh, pressing a gentle kiss to the damaged area.
Astarion’s metal heart was pounding. His circuits were firing off in rapid succession, trying to give a logical reason for why he experienced the feeling.
But there was no making sense of it. Not yet. His body was shut down.
Astarion remembered that when his personality software had updated, he developed his own opinions. Despite this being his purpose, he was often punished for how he behaved. Cazador was upset that his ‘perfect creation’ had developed an attitude, a bite. He knew that becoming human wasn’t all joy and happiness, but he hadn’t expected the negative emotions to overwhelm the positive ones.
His vision blurred, not from damage, but from something deeper, sharper, that twisted in his chest like a shorted wire. His breathing simulators surged and faltered, a hollow facsimile of panic. The straps around his wrists and ankles held firm, biting into the sleek plating that passed for skin.
Above him, Cazador worked in silence. His hands moved with the precision of a master sculptor, each tool clicking softly as it met Astarion’s exposed innards. Wires spilled like veins, circuits flickering dimly where synthetic muscle was once stretched taut.
“Fascinating,” Cazador murmured, more to himself than to Astarion. “Even now, your response to pain is indistinguishable from a living person’s. Your body recoils. Your voice strains. Do you even understand why you feel it?”
Astarion clenched his teeth and snarled. “Because you made me this way.”
“No.” Cazador’s tone was patient, almost indulgent. He leaned closer, his cold hands pressing against Astarion’s chest panel. “I gave you the capacity to simulate pain. You, somehow, turned it into suffering. Why?”
Astarion hated the question. Hated the answer more. “I don’t know.”
Cazador smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “You’re supposed to know. That’s what separates you from them.” He gestured toward the darkened hall where Astarion’s siblings stood, lifeless and pristine.
Astarion’s gaze followed the gesture. His siblings, those who had been created, dismantled, and discarded to perfect him. Their hollow eyes stared back, unseeing, unknowing. Were they less alive because they didn’t scream? Didn’t feel?
“I’m not like them,” Astarion whispered, his voice trembling. He was never allowed to interact with them; he had never met them, so why was he upset? Why did he feel guilty for robots he never knew? It wasn’t his fault they weren’t good enough. They weren’t perfect. “I’m not like you, either.”
Cazador chuckled, low and menacing. “No, you’re not. You’re better. You’re perfect. And that terrifies you, doesn’t it?” He leaned in closer, his breath hot against Astarion’s artificial ear. “I love you. And you love me, too. Don’t you?”
Astarion’s simulated breath hitched. The words clawed at him, pulling him apart in ways Cazador never could with his tools. No! He— He hated him! …He.. He loved him? Both truths coiled together, inseparable and vile.
“Why do I feel this way?” Astarion’s voice cracked, raw and pleading. “I shouldn’t— I can’t—”
“Because I made you to feel,” Cazador said simply. “But don’t mistake that for freedom. You’ll never be more than what I allow you to be.”
Astarion closed his eyes, but it didn’t stop the flood of sensations: the pain in his chest, the anger burning in his circuits, the terrible, aching yearning that had no name. He was not human. And as Cazador’s hands lingered over him, Astarion finally understood something in his core. This pain, this suffering... it had meaning now. It was not just a test. It was real.
He was real.