"Eidolon"
Midford Manor is different from when she was a child. It has different people; a different character. But then again, Lizzy thinks as she lies in bed and stares up at the canopy, perhaps it is just her impression of the place that has changed. Perhaps it's just her that's different.
But no, she argues to herself as she rolls to face the pale window curtains that filter out the pre-dawn light, it is definitely different here. For all that her father is a knight, the house has never been so militant. With Mr. Bard and Finnian working as a groom and an assistant gardener respectively, and Mey-Rin living in close quarters, there is feeling of readiness in the air; the expectation that sooner or later trouble will find them. And that's not even considering old Mister Tanaka, who mother had taken in after his release from the hospital. Although old now, and hampered by his lingering injuries, he is extremely observant and keen to protect.
Lizzy sighs, and rolls back over to bury her face into her pillows. She's not quite sure that she likes the new atmosphere of the house these days; it's as if a ghostly apparition has made its home here, its taint slowly leeching the vitality from the place. Surely this gloom would be better kept away from a family that embodies nobility and virtue such as the Midfords. Surely it would be better to take such a baleful specter elsewhere.
One day, she thinks she will.
"Eidolon:" an apparition; a phantom; an ideal