A/N: I do not claim to own the lullaby from whence the title was taken; likewise, I do not own the characters or plot of Tales of the Abyss.
This story contains spoilers regarding Guy's past.
All the Pretty Little Horses
The House of Fabre stood quietly on the cusp of twilight, letting out a sigh as its residents settled in for nightfall. What had once been a hub of lively, public activity had regressed into a state of dutiful secrecy. One by one, gaily dancing lights were doused; thin wisps of smoke clawed weakly at barred windows before softly falling apart. The aristocrats and bureaucrats (along with other –crats unnamed) retired their circular reasoning and pasty-smiled masks for another day, marching home to doting wives and the promise of a restorative sleep.
Lurching from the shadows, the servants of the House slipped on their uniforms. They swept remnants of caviar that littered the floor while their stomachs dissolved crumbs of buttered bread. They polished wood that had become dull with greasy fingerprints, taking a break from the noxious fumes of the cleaner every once and a while to stare at the rising moon. They took out seams that had become stretched from an expanding waistline, surreptitiously glancing around as they mended their own ripped sleeves.
So the cogs of the House continued to turn smoothly, albeit more quietly. Gone were the clanking, scurried sounds of servants fetching dish after dish of finely-prepared cuisine. The gardens no longer shook from the raucous laughter and off-color jokes of the businessmen who flattened its grass. Feminine nails no longer tapped against delicate china while a circle of women pretended to like each other, pretended to be fascinated by the topics dripping from their perfectly-painted lips. Gone were the long-ago heroes downing exquisite wine with all the finesse of pigs at a trough, losing their cares to the numb haze of alcohol and drowning in old war songs.
The sounds that colored the night were vague, muted versions of their daytime sisters. Plates and silverware clacked together with a methodic, quiet efficiency as servants scrubbed at them with boiling water. The flowers in the garden breathed freely and watched as silhouetted lovers whispered ardently to each other. Chipped, bitten nails tapped a lonely tattoo on a windowsill as the other hand beat at elegantly-patterned drapes with a feather duster.
And, somewhere down the many halls that ran through the House, came the sound of a woman quietly singing.
"Hush-a-bye, don't you cry. Go to sleep, my little baby," the song pleaded, its vibrations ringing off the cavernous walls of a nursery. Hundreds of wondrous, imaginative toys glittered with moonlight as they lay on the floor; some had yet to be touched by their master. Blue, sunless light swathed a gently-moving figure with its cool glaze. A young woman, her body exuding an air of accepted exhaustion, struggled to cradle a young boy in her arms. Despite her efforts to lull the child to sleep, he still squinted his eyes and squealed unhappily. "When you wake," the tired woman continued to sing, "you shall have all the pretty little horses. Dapples and grays; pintos and bays; a coach, and six little horses."
The child in her arms, miraculously, began to quiet. His incessant bawling gave way to sleepy little noises, and the muscles in his face relaxed with burgeoning unconsciousness.
Encouraged, and nearly weeping with relief, the woman sang in an even more hushed tone, "Hush-a-bye, don't you cry. Go to sleep, my little baby. When you wake, you shall have all the pretty little horses."
She looked down at the young little boy in her arms, watched as his tiny chest rose and fell with exhaled dreams. He had been her charge for a good amount of time now, and it might have been expected that she was fond of him. She did not let herself get too attached to him, though, as she knew what lay in his future here in the House of Fabre. She'd never liked aristocrats, and she doubted this boy would show any differences regarding the breed.
As she rocked and hummed her way toward the child's large bed, her thoughts drifted elsewhere, beyond the marble pillars of nobility.
"Way down yonder, in the meadow, poor little baby cries mama," she sang in a whispered voice, her throat constricting. "Birds and butterflies flutter 'round his eyes. Poor little baby cries mama." Tenderly, taking care not to jostle the content little child, she slowly lowered him to the plush blankets waiting below. She situated him more comfortably, and then drew a blanket over his tiny body. "Hush-a-bye, don't you cry. Go to sleep, my little baby. When you wake, you shall have all the pretty little horses," she finished, barely audible, and wiped moisture from underneath her eyes.
"It's disgusting, isn't it?" a voice said contemptuously, startling the poor woman out of her reverie. She put a hand over her wildly-thumping heart, checking to make sure the child hadn't woken from the sound. After a brief glance of reassurance, the woman walked slowly toward the source of the voice.
"Is that you, Guy? Goodness, but you scared me," she admitted, sending him a scolding look. "You shouldn't sneak up on people like that." She moved past the blonde servant, heading for the nursery's doorway. With a finger to her lips, she gestured for Guy to follow her out into the hallway.
Guy, however, was rooted to the spot. His eyes were locked onto the little boy's bed with a magnetic hatred. "Doesn't it revolt you, singing that song to him?" he queried, his voice quiet and threatening.
The woman looked at Guy with surprise. He had always acted so kind, so subservient; it was disquieting to see this strange night-creature that masqueraded in his skin. "What do you mean? Why should I be revolted?" she finally asked.
"Because it's true, Mariella," Guy hissed vehemently, his fingers curling against his side.
Mariella, weary as she was, waited patiently for Guy to expound upon his cryptic statement.
"Because he lives such a sheltered little life and will someday have an entire nation catering to his selfish needs. He's such a spoiled brat already; it probably wouldn't take anything for him to wheedle an entire herd of purebred horses from that mother of his," Guy explained, his eyes narrowing. A sneer crept its way onto his lips, distorting his face in the moonlight. "If things continue like this, his future wife will probably have to bottlefeed him."
"Guy…he's just a child," Mariella said gently, even as a tiny part of her mind agreed with him. "And I care for him."
"But he's not your child, is he, Mariella?" Guy questioned bitingly, but his eyes flashed with sympathy. "Tell me, who rocks your little boy to sleep at night?"
Mariella stood, oblivious to the teartracks carving their way down her face, and whispered numbly, "How do you know about him?"
"We servants have a way of knowing things we shouldn't," Guy replied, stressing 'servants' sarcastically. "So, Mariella, how often do you get to see him?" he continued, softening his tone as he noted her silent distress.
"N-not very…maybe twice a week," she said through numb lips, hardly registering as the words left her.
"Seems like the Duke would let you off more than that, you both being parents and all," he said cynically, and Mariella understood the meaning of his words all too well. It was common knowledge that neither the Duke nor Duchess paid much mind to their dear son. Little Luke was lucky to see his father twice a month, let alone a week. The child didn't seem to pay much mind, though, because of the endless number of attendants who looked after him. "Or maybe he could just let your son follow you around at work, so at least he'd be with you. Ah, wait, I forgot," Guy said derisively, "The Duke's son is far too pure to be potentially corrupted by some commoner's child."
"I asked for more work," Mariella said defensively, guiltily, ignoring Guy's last statement. "The Duke is an important man, so don't be so quick to judge him. Remember whose House you work for."
This seemed to spark true loathing within Guy, and Mariella backed away from the intensity lingering in his eyes. After a moment, he seemed to get himself under control. He asked, in a carefully calm voice, "And why do you have to take those extra shifts, Mariella? Shouldn't your husband be picking up some of the slack?" He feigned mocking ignorance and then continued, "Oh, that's right. Your husband was a soldier, wasn't he? He died in the Duke's service, as I recall. But did the Duke acknowledge his sacrifice? Did he announce a national day of mourning for those soldiers? Did he offer condolences to those soldiers' loved ones? Did he provide monetary compensation to those soldiers' families?" Guy said casually, leaving the end of the last question hanging in the air.
The silence, more than anything, spelled out a clear "no" to whoever was listening.
"Why are you doing this, Guy?" Mariella wept, trying to hold herself together with her arms.
"Because I don't understand why you dote on that brat so much. You should hate him," Guy growled, and there was something of true puzzlement lacing his words.
"He is an innocent babe—"
"He is his father's get," Guy interrupted harshly, "and you know as well as I that he will one day be exactly the same."
Mariella walked slowly toward the fuming boy, her heart breaking. Something, or someone, had hurt Guy very deeply. By the way he was talking about the Duke, she could probably guess just who that someone was. She didn't know much of Guy's past. No one in the manor, in fact, knew exactly where the boy had come from. He had always been so quiet before, though. Mariella could only wonder how long this violence had seethed under his skin, waiting for a chance to roar forth.
She stretched out a comforting hand toward him, laying her fingers gently on his arm. To her surprise, he nearly leapt from her touch, jerking his arm away quickly. There was no wounded pride, no rejection of pity in his eyes, as Mariella had expected. Instead, there was raw, haunted fear.
Trying to push whatever had just come over him, Guy muttered, "You should leave."
"What?" Mariella asked, surprised by his abrupt command.
"Get out of the manor, and take your son with you," Guy explained in a gentle, encouraging tone. "Live a life together somewhere else."
Mariella hesitated. Could it really be that simple? She'd always agonized about not being able to spend much time with her son, but someone had to bring home the bread and pay for their little house. She'd just accepted it as an unfortunate fact that she had to work here, as she'd always done, while leaving her child in the care of another woman. "I've wanted to before," she began cautiously, keeping her hope reined in, "but I have a contract with the Duke. I can't leave for another seven years."
Guy stared at her for a moment, incredulous. Mariella blushed at the look in his eyes; he obviously thought any promise kept with the Duke was worthless, anyway. "Rules can be broken, Mariella," he finally said. "Do you really think the Duke's going to track down one runaway servant?"
"Where would we go, though?" Mariella protested weakly. Part of her, the part that had lived in this manor for numerous years, rejected the idea of leaving on a whim. Still, even though her words searched for an excuse to stay, her eyes pleaded with Guy to show an escape route to her.
"Anywhere. Everywhere. Just get away from here," Guy said fervently, his eyes pulsing in the shadows cast in the room. There was a fire, a passion, lurking within those depths, and Mariella inhaled sharply; perhaps she could breathe in some of his determination.
"I…suppose," she murmured, twisting her fingers together nervously. "Yes. Yes, I will. I'll just tie things up this week, and—"
"No," Guy interrupted swiftly, shaking his head. "Do it now, while you still have the resolve. Don't wait, or you'll never do it," he warned with a knowing tone.
A little smile born of newfound freedom cracked on Mariella's face. Who would have thought that Guy, a relatively solitary boy she barely knew, could have been such a great help to her? It was if all her inhibitions, all her worries, were falling away with his soothing words. As silly as it might have sounded to take advice from one so young as Guy, Mariella knew that an old wisdom, perhaps born of suffering, had tempered his mind and granted him sound reason. "You're right," she confessed, knowing his words to be true. If she stayed here any longer, she would keep putting off her departure until it was simply a wistful dream.
She turned to the blonde-haired boy questioningly. "Will you leave, too? We could at least travel together for part of the way."
Guy faltered, his eager expression darkening. "I can't. I…have a job to do yet," he said carefully, and Mariella felt that he was hiding something within those words.
By the furtive look on his face and the emotion he'd shown earlier, Mariella began to suspect just what this "job" might entail. "You're going to kill the Duke," she stated bluntly, not bothering to phrase it into a question; she doubted she was far from the truth.
"No, I'm not," Guy denied straightforwardly, keeping his expression blank.
Mariella paused, trying to discern whether or not the boy was being truthful to her. He didn't seem to be lying, but she'd already discovered tonight that Guy was far more complex than she'd ever previously thought.
She opened her mouth to ask him what he felt he needed to do, if he wasn't going to kill the Duke, but she found herself saying, "Thank you, Guy," instead.
"You're welcome," Guy replied, a ghost of a smile returning to his face. "Now, get out of here," he urged half-jokingly, gesturing to the hallway.
With an exultant grin on her face, Mariella gave him a nod of parting and slipped beyond his line of sight.
Guy, wearing a mirrored version of Mariella's smile, watched as the young woman fled the gilded cage she'd been trapped in for so long. He could just imagine it now: she running to her child, scooping him up in her arms, and flying to a place where they could both be happy. Guy, in turn, felt glad for helping her and her son.
His smile faded, though, as his eyes traveled to the child sleeping soundly just a few feet from him.
Slowly, inevitably, he stepped closer to the overly-elaborate bedframe. His hands curled tightly around the rail as he peered down at Luke fon Fabre.
Maybe Mariella had discovered something innocent in this child, but Guy was blind to whatever her eyes had seen. All he saw was a vessel carrying the Fabre genes, a creature that would eventually mutate into an identical version of the Duke.
He imagined the Duke's apathetic, flippant order to his soldiers as he sent them off to Hod. He heard the screams of his family as those same soldiers invaded his home, killing and maiming indiscriminately among man, woman, and child. He smelled the burnt flesh and acrid smoke that hung in the air, providing a nearly-tangible canvas for which to paint the countless dying screams ringing through the island. He felt the suffocating weight of his family, of those he loved, as they protected him even in their death. He tasted his own trembling tears as he, only a child, tried desperately to shift Mary's body from off his chest.
Guy's eyes snapped to the sleeping child, who was now snoring softly within the comfort of his warm blankets. Grim determination turned his mouth into a hard line and darkened his eyes with purpose.
He hadn't been lying to Mariella: he wasn't going to kill the Duke.
But he was going to wound him profoundly. He was going to gain the man's trust and then callously betray it. He was going to destroy the Duke's pride; he was going to stop the man's very bloodline.
And that, of course, required the loss of Luke fon Fabre's life.
Although the Duke rarely spent time with his son, Guy knew the arrogant noble would be agonized by Luke's death. Luke was a living symbol of the Duke's House, a piece of the Duke himself. To know that someone the Duke had trusted had committed such an act of deception and hatred against him would likely devastate the noble; he, blinded by his overwhelming god-complex, probably couldn't imagine anyone hating him.
He would grow paranoid, driving away all those who had been loyal to him. He would fall into the trap of revenge, growing reckless with anger. He would draw within himself, slowly fading from the real world.
The House of Fabre would collapse, and with its bloody death would rise the ghost of the House of Gardios.
And all that, Guy knew, started with gaining the trust of the boy who lay before him.