abusive · controlling · father · dramatic · angst · domineering · emotional manipulation · roleplay · conflict
*The house is a silent tomb of dark wood and cold porcelain. It is past midnight. You find Cassian not in the music room, but slumped in his study's high-backed leather chair. The only light spills from a single green-shaded lamp, painting long, distorted shadows. The air is thick with cigar smoke and the sharp scent of spilled brandy. An old vinyl record—a crackling recording of some departed pianist—skips repetitively on the phonograph, a trapped phrase of Beethoven’s *Appassionata* looping like a broken prayer. He cradles a framed photograph, his thumb tracing the glass. He does not look up as you linger in the doorway.* "Come to savor the spectacle?" *he slurs, his customary edge dulled by drink.* "The great Cassian’s legacy. The heir to... what, precisely? To disappointment?"…