Slowly, slowly, his senses return to him. It helps that Pike all but falls off him into Grog’s arms, and that Vax pulls smoothly out and away, leaving him with just Vex’s familiar body atop his. She lets him slip out of her so that she can stretch out, her breasts pressing against his chest, her breath ghosting over his lips a second before she kisses him. Out of habit Percy closes his eyes as they kiss, and when he opens them again she’s eased the blindfold off so that he can gaze up into her warm brown eyes.
“Have we used you well tonight, Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the third?”
The liquid sound of his full name on her lips never fails to make him smile. “Yes. Thank you. Thank you all.”
Scanlan clears his throat. “I do have a recovery room as well as Scanlan’s Sensual Seraglio,” he informs the group at large. The group at large responds with an unimpressed groan.
Percy feels the rope at his ankles loosen and looks past Vex to see Pike deftly picking the knots free. There’s a second table beside his, this one with various toys and suchlike on it. More coils of rope, at least one of a hemp far rougher than the silk used tonight. A pair of shears with rounded ends that Pike doesn’t need to free him of her clever bonds. The plug that kept him stretched open. Two bottles of oil, one half-used. Another two potion vials. The thought of how long he might offer service for given these latter items makes him swallow hard.
“What is it, darling?” Vex asks softly.
“I was thinking about how much oil we have left,” Percy says.
Vex laughs, without the somewhat cruel tone that has accompanied it over the last... he doesn’t even know how long. Have they been here for hours? “That’s true, but I think the rest of us would need endurance potions of our own to keep you going.”
“Is that what that was?”
“That, combined with healing. Gilmore was non-specific as to why he’d come up with it, but I could guess.”
There’s a moment of quiet between them as they each speculate about whether there might be a more innocent use for a potion combining a stamina boost and healing. Though ordinarily Percy could come up with three in as many seconds, right now the only one that he can think of has his cock stirring a little against Vex’s thigh.
“Later,” Vex murmurs. “If you still want.” She kisses him, then, and rolls off his body with an economy of graceful movement Percy’s not sure anyone but her brother could match.
Vax is the one to come and help Percy off the table, tossing a bundle of deep green silk at his sister before shaking out a similar bundle for Percy. It’s a robe—thin, meant to half cover and half display one’s body, semi-sheer as it is—but it does cover every part of Percy’s body as he wraps it around himself before finding his feet.
For the first time he gets a good look around. His companions are all donning similar robes, colored according to Scanlan’s whim—Pike’s is blue like her eyes, Vax’s black, Scanlan’s own a rich royal purple. Their regular clothing is lying wherever they disrobed at the beginning of the evening; the servants will tidy it away.
The clothing lies on rugs and on couches that all follow a general gently curved pattern. It goes with the fact that the room itself is round, rather than quadrilateral. He’s surprised to see that most of the decor is in muted grays and blues, rather than the garish red and black he would have expected from Scanlan. There is a nook filled with toys: pain-toys, pleasure-toys, all sorts, and a line marked on the floor, presumably the extent of the silence spell. The ceiling is domed and, while the room is predominantly lit by wall sconces, there are smaller lights overhead. Percy thinks they would recreate the night sky quite well, should the situation call for it.
He thinks of sharing this experience outdoors—even pretend outdoors—and shudders with mingled fear and desire.
“Are you all right, Percival?” Vax asks, his tone making it clear he’s not just poking fun.
“Fine. Just—I think I need to sit down.”
Vax moves to guide him to a couch, but Scanlan shakes his head and gestures for them all to pass through a beaded curtain into a second room, furnished similarly but with some notable differences. Everything is lighter in color: the walls, the ceiling, the couches. The biggest difference is that instead of a nook full of sex toys, there’s a table set for seven, with food being brought out by several quietly efficient servants.
Or perhaps the biggest difference is that this room doesn’t reek of sex.
Not that Percy objects in the slightest to the smell of sex, but in this instance the smell of frying chicken helps to start bringing him back from the place inside that his mind’s gone. It’s a dark place, but comfortable and cozy, and all his friends—his lovers, truly—have seen him through it in their own ways.
They gather around the table to tend to the basic needs after such an undertaking: Grog drinks ale, but the others refresh themselves with water. Even now it’s best to keep a clear head. There’s ample chicken prepared in many ways, but Scanlan has almost managed to get the concept of vegetables across to the servants, so there’s grilled corn on the cob and potatoes baked in their jackets. Simple fare, but filling, and more importantly grounding.
Percy finds it difficult to sit down. His body is less than delighted: coming out of the pleasant languor of sex, the emergence of various aches and pains is impossible to ignore. It’s the deep-down feeling of being well used, not the kind of thing that can be touched by any potion. He feels sleepy, and can see on the faces of the others that they feel the same way. Pike in particular looks ready to slip off her seat and onto the floor. Grog notices and pushes a crusty bread roll filled with hot chicken her way.
“Everyone’s gotta eat before bed,” he informs the table at large, as though it weren’t perfectly obvious given the existence of the meal in the recovery room.
Vex breaks open a roll, butters it, and passes half to Percy and half to her brother. Keyleth starts handing around ears of steaming corn, prompting Scanlan to make a horrible observation about their length and girth. As easily as that they’re on the path back out of the long-held fantasy to just being Vox Machina, well-known heroes of the land. The world doubtless thinks they have Vox Machina all figured out. Brash Scanlan and Grog, notorious frequenters of brothels; Vax’ildan and sweet Keyleth, quietly evolving their relationship; Pike Trickfoot, beloved of Sarenrae; and Vex’ahlia, unexpectedly raised to the ranks of Whitestone nobility, presumably due to her own developing relationship with Whitestone’s only son.
And himself, Percy de Rolo, son of Whitestone. Whore of Whitestone. The memory of Keyleth calling him that makes him feel giddy, and he laughs.
“Something funny?” Vex asks, pressing a tender piece of chicken against his lips.
Percy accepts the morsel, taking it from her fingers with a lingering lick. “Just thinking about tonight.”
“Are you feeling okay, Freddie?” Vax asks. “Eat some more.”
“The potatoes are great.” Scanlan picks one out of the bowl with the tongs and puts it onto Percy’s plate. “I can almost guarantee they don’t taste like chicken.”
Between the seven of them, they manage to demolish a fair amount of the food that’s been provided, each of them in their turn making certain that the others aren’t neglecting themselves.
It’s strange just how normal everything feels. Percy had been expecting it to all be thoroughly awkward when at some point someone fully internalized just what they’d all done. But that moment never comes. Not even from Keyleth, where he’d expected it the most.
Instead, once the main meal is gone, the servants clear away the plates and bring out an incredible ice confection for dessert, the fine-crushed ice colored with sugar syrup and garnished lavishly with all kinds of berries. It’s very much a dish to share, and share it they do; by the time the bowl is empty save for a couple of blueberries Percy thinks he’s been fed a spoonful by each of the others, and fed them in return.
Despite the sugar, Pike’s yawning before the sweet treat is gone. Too much of the other kind of treat, Percy assumes. Keyleth’s head is drooping onto Vax’s shoulder, although she still takes raspberries one by one from his fingers.
It’s Scanlan who looks the most awake as best as Percy can tell, and Scanlan who prompts them all to the last step before bed: bathing. Naturally there are individualized bathing chambers for each of them off this recovery room. Just like the carefully created robes—that Percy doesn’t think are merely a creation of the mansion—it’s indicative of how carefully Scanlan thought so much of this through.
Percy gets one step into his bathing chamber and stops. He can’t be alone right now. But Vex sees him freeze and, though they usually give each other a degree of space when it comes to matters of personal hygiene when they have the choice (as adventuring does not always permit them such privacy), she follows him into the room, closing the door behind them.
“Are you all right?”
“I just don’t want to be alone.”
They bathe together, taking advantage of the mansion’s ability to produce a hot bath without the effort of cutting and carrying firewood to boil water. They speak little; whatever discussion is to come to pass between them regarding the impact of this on their relationship will have to wait, for tonight is about the seven of them together. Mostly it’s just pass the soap and can you do my back: sweet simple things that bring both of them back down to earth.
There is one big question that Percy asks Vex, though.
“Did you mind sharing?”
“Not at all,” Vex says immediately, and there’s no hint of jealousy in her eyes. “Although I wouldn’t do it every night.”
“I’d die if you did.”
“Someone else might have to have a turn in the middle.”
Percy’s fingers go still in Vex’s wet hair, snagging on a tangle, making her flinch. “You—do you really think someone else might—Vex, it’s not normal.”
“Nothing’s normal when it comes to sex,” Vex says complacently. “Just common. And anyway, don’t you think Pike would like a turn at being the center of attention? She was enjoying herself very much.”
Percy doesn’t have to think about it very hard to agree with her.
Once they’re clean and dry, dressed in their own nightclothes, the seven of them gather in the recovery room, from which Scanlan leads them to the last new room of the night.
It seems impossible that one bed could be big enough for seven people, let alone when one is a goliath and two are gnomes capable of being swamped by the covers, but Scanlan has managed it. It’s more or less circular, and covered with enough blankets and pillows to outfit an entire inn.
“I’m starting to think you’ve been thinking about a Vox Machina orgy for a while now, Scan-man,” Vax says, taking up a position along an outer edge of the bed. Keyleth curls into him and pats the bed for Percy to lie down in the middle. He crawls in next to her, and Vex promptly spoons in behind him, with Grog behind her. Pike unhesitatingly clambers on top of Grog to use him as a mattress, while Scanlan lies crossways along the top of the bed, his head near Percy’s and his feet close enough to Vax’s head for Vax to complain.
“I just have a sense for how to fit things together,” Scanlan says.
The lights turn down low; the ceiling is domed in here as well and soft lights mimic the stars outside. Keyleth starts pointing out constellations, falling asleep after three. Vax isn’t far behind her, his usual watchfulness slipping away in the safety of the mansion. Grog starts snoring mightily, but they’re all well accustomed to that by now. Pike emits her own tiny snores as she lies on Grog’s chest.
He turns his head to kiss her properly, a slow dance of tongues and lips that leaves them both sighing somewhat giddily. It’s not so dark that he can’t see her smile.
“Goodnight, Scanlan. Thank you for all your hard work making this for us.”
“It was my pleasure, Lady Vex’ahlia.”
Vex doesn’t snap at him for the title, as she is wont to do; her arm tightens around Percy’s waist and then her breathing evens out into the slow cadence of sleep.
Percy expects to be last to sleep, despite how very insistent his body is that it would like to be left alone to recover. He doesn’t feel that his brain will switch off in a hurry.
“Percy,” Scanlan murmurs.
“Mmmm?”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“A little sore.”
“I meant mentally.”
Percy considers this. “I’m afraid I’ll wake up in the morning and you’ll all have left me behind because I’m just too—too wrong in the head.”
Scanlan’s hand brushes the top of his head; Percy reaches up to grip it. “We wouldn’t have done this just because you said it. We all wanted it as much as you.”
Percy thinks of Orthax and of just how sharp-edged and deep and dark desire can be, and lets out a quiet negatory sound.
“We did,” Scanlan insists. “Pike told us that the zone of truth spell meant you had to be honest—”
Painfully honest. He’d been aware of the spell, but unable to think of an answer to the question that was properly evasive, and the truth had been drawn out of him one blushing word at a time.
“—and Keyleth said the least we could do was repay your honesty with our own, and then Vax said he’d, what was it? Bang you like a goliath hitting rocks together to light a fire.”
“Did not,” Vax protests from the shallows of sleep.
“Well, anyway. We all expressed our interest in our own ways, and then it was just a matter of logistics, timing, and—”
“Telling me.”
“That was the hard part.”
Percy remembers how Scanlan had broached the subject by popping his head into Percy’s workshop and bluntly asking, “Remember that whole seven-way fantasy thing you mentioned? Are you still interested?”, and says, “It didn’t seem that hard for you.”
“Well, just because you had the fantasy didn’t mean you wanted it. People think all kinds of things in the privacy of their own minds. You just didn't have any choice about speaking it.”
“I wanted it,” Percy says quietly.
Scanlan’s hand tightens on his. “I know. So did we.”
“Shup, Sca’ln. Tryna sleep,” Pike murmurs, not particularly indignantly.
But Percy’s glad of Scanlan’s words, and he thinks Scanlan’s glad to be sure that everything that has passed between them all this night won’t turn out to have been a nightmarish idea in the morning.
“Love you all,” he says into the half-dark.
Not everyone responds, due to the draw of sleep, but nonetheless Percy feels their love surrounding him, palpable as the physical blankets draped every which way over them.
His fingers slacken and slip from Scanlan’s; as sleep takes him he hears Scanlan begin to hum something that might be a lullaby.
See Me At My Worst, 11/11 (Percy/Vox Machina, NC-17)
“Have we used you well tonight, Percival Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo the third?”
The liquid sound of his full name on her lips never fails to make him smile. “Yes. Thank you. Thank you all.”
Scanlan clears his throat. “I do have a recovery room as well as Scanlan’s Sensual Seraglio,” he informs the group at large. The group at large responds with an unimpressed groan.
Percy feels the rope at his ankles loosen and looks past Vex to see Pike deftly picking the knots free. There’s a second table beside his, this one with various toys and suchlike on it. More coils of rope, at least one of a hemp far rougher than the silk used tonight. A pair of shears with rounded ends that Pike doesn’t need to free him of her clever bonds. The plug that kept him stretched open. Two bottles of oil, one half-used. Another two potion vials. The thought of how long he might offer service for given these latter items makes him swallow hard.
“What is it, darling?” Vex asks softly.
“I was thinking about how much oil we have left,” Percy says.
Vex laughs, without the somewhat cruel tone that has accompanied it over the last... he doesn’t even know how long. Have they been here for hours? “That’s true, but I think the rest of us would need endurance potions of our own to keep you going.”
“Is that what that was?”
“That, combined with healing. Gilmore was non-specific as to why he’d come up with it, but I could guess.”
There’s a moment of quiet between them as they each speculate about whether there might be a more innocent use for a potion combining a stamina boost and healing. Though ordinarily Percy could come up with three in as many seconds, right now the only one that he can think of has his cock stirring a little against Vex’s thigh.
“Later,” Vex murmurs. “If you still want.” She kisses him, then, and rolls off his body with an economy of graceful movement Percy’s not sure anyone but her brother could match.
Vax is the one to come and help Percy off the table, tossing a bundle of deep green silk at his sister before shaking out a similar bundle for Percy. It’s a robe—thin, meant to half cover and half display one’s body, semi-sheer as it is—but it does cover every part of Percy’s body as he wraps it around himself before finding his feet.
For the first time he gets a good look around. His companions are all donning similar robes, colored according to Scanlan’s whim—Pike’s is blue like her eyes, Vax’s black, Scanlan’s own a rich royal purple. Their regular clothing is lying wherever they disrobed at the beginning of the evening; the servants will tidy it away.
The clothing lies on rugs and on couches that all follow a general gently curved pattern. It goes with the fact that the room itself is round, rather than quadrilateral. He’s surprised to see that most of the decor is in muted grays and blues, rather than the garish red and black he would have expected from Scanlan. There is a nook filled with toys: pain-toys, pleasure-toys, all sorts, and a line marked on the floor, presumably the extent of the silence spell. The ceiling is domed and, while the room is predominantly lit by wall sconces, there are smaller lights overhead. Percy thinks they would recreate the night sky quite well, should the situation call for it.
He thinks of sharing this experience outdoors—even pretend outdoors—and shudders with mingled fear and desire.
“Are you all right, Percival?” Vax asks, his tone making it clear he’s not just poking fun.
“Fine. Just—I think I need to sit down.”
Vax moves to guide him to a couch, but Scanlan shakes his head and gestures for them all to pass through a beaded curtain into a second room, furnished similarly but with some notable differences. Everything is lighter in color: the walls, the ceiling, the couches. The biggest difference is that instead of a nook full of sex toys, there’s a table set for seven, with food being brought out by several quietly efficient servants.
Or perhaps the biggest difference is that this room doesn’t reek of sex.
Not that Percy objects in the slightest to the smell of sex, but in this instance the smell of frying chicken helps to start bringing him back from the place inside that his mind’s gone. It’s a dark place, but comfortable and cozy, and all his friends—his lovers, truly—have seen him through it in their own ways.
They gather around the table to tend to the basic needs after such an undertaking: Grog drinks ale, but the others refresh themselves with water. Even now it’s best to keep a clear head. There’s ample chicken prepared in many ways, but Scanlan has almost managed to get the concept of vegetables across to the servants, so there’s grilled corn on the cob and potatoes baked in their jackets. Simple fare, but filling, and more importantly grounding.
Percy finds it difficult to sit down. His body is less than delighted: coming out of the pleasant languor of sex, the emergence of various aches and pains is impossible to ignore. It’s the deep-down feeling of being well used, not the kind of thing that can be touched by any potion. He feels sleepy, and can see on the faces of the others that they feel the same way. Pike in particular looks ready to slip off her seat and onto the floor. Grog notices and pushes a crusty bread roll filled with hot chicken her way.
“Everyone’s gotta eat before bed,” he informs the table at large, as though it weren’t perfectly obvious given the existence of the meal in the recovery room.
Vex breaks open a roll, butters it, and passes half to Percy and half to her brother. Keyleth starts handing around ears of steaming corn, prompting Scanlan to make a horrible observation about their length and girth. As easily as that they’re on the path back out of the long-held fantasy to just being Vox Machina, well-known heroes of the land. The world doubtless thinks they have Vox Machina all figured out. Brash Scanlan and Grog, notorious frequenters of brothels; Vax’ildan and sweet Keyleth, quietly evolving their relationship; Pike Trickfoot, beloved of Sarenrae; and Vex’ahlia, unexpectedly raised to the ranks of Whitestone nobility, presumably due to her own developing relationship with Whitestone’s only son.
And himself, Percy de Rolo, son of Whitestone. Whore of Whitestone. The memory of Keyleth calling him that makes him feel giddy, and he laughs.
“Something funny?” Vex asks, pressing a tender piece of chicken against his lips.
Percy accepts the morsel, taking it from her fingers with a lingering lick. “Just thinking about tonight.”
“Are you feeling okay, Freddie?” Vax asks. “Eat some more.”
“The potatoes are great.” Scanlan picks one out of the bowl with the tongs and puts it onto Percy’s plate. “I can almost guarantee they don’t taste like chicken.”
Between the seven of them, they manage to demolish a fair amount of the food that’s been provided, each of them in their turn making certain that the others aren’t neglecting themselves.
It’s strange just how normal everything feels. Percy had been expecting it to all be thoroughly awkward when at some point someone fully internalized just what they’d all done. But that moment never comes. Not even from Keyleth, where he’d expected it the most.
Instead, once the main meal is gone, the servants clear away the plates and bring out an incredible ice confection for dessert, the fine-crushed ice colored with sugar syrup and garnished lavishly with all kinds of berries. It’s very much a dish to share, and share it they do; by the time the bowl is empty save for a couple of blueberries Percy thinks he’s been fed a spoonful by each of the others, and fed them in return.
Despite the sugar, Pike’s yawning before the sweet treat is gone. Too much of the other kind of treat, Percy assumes. Keyleth’s head is drooping onto Vax’s shoulder, although she still takes raspberries one by one from his fingers.
It’s Scanlan who looks the most awake as best as Percy can tell, and Scanlan who prompts them all to the last step before bed: bathing. Naturally there are individualized bathing chambers for each of them off this recovery room. Just like the carefully created robes—that Percy doesn’t think are merely a creation of the mansion—it’s indicative of how carefully Scanlan thought so much of this through.
Percy gets one step into his bathing chamber and stops. He can’t be alone right now. But Vex sees him freeze and, though they usually give each other a degree of space when it comes to matters of personal hygiene when they have the choice (as adventuring does not always permit them such privacy), she follows him into the room, closing the door behind them.
“Are you all right?”
“I just don’t want to be alone.”
They bathe together, taking advantage of the mansion’s ability to produce a hot bath without the effort of cutting and carrying firewood to boil water. They speak little; whatever discussion is to come to pass between them regarding the impact of this on their relationship will have to wait, for tonight is about the seven of them together. Mostly it’s just pass the soap and can you do my back: sweet simple things that bring both of them back down to earth.
There is one big question that Percy asks Vex, though.
“Did you mind sharing?”
“Not at all,” Vex says immediately, and there’s no hint of jealousy in her eyes. “Although I wouldn’t do it every night.”
“I’d die if you did.”
“Someone else might have to have a turn in the middle.”
Percy’s fingers go still in Vex’s wet hair, snagging on a tangle, making her flinch. “You—do you really think someone else might—Vex, it’s not normal.”
“Nothing’s normal when it comes to sex,” Vex says complacently. “Just common. And anyway, don’t you think Pike would like a turn at being the center of attention? She was enjoying herself very much.”
Percy doesn’t have to think about it very hard to agree with her.
Once they’re clean and dry, dressed in their own nightclothes, the seven of them gather in the recovery room, from which Scanlan leads them to the last new room of the night.
It seems impossible that one bed could be big enough for seven people, let alone when one is a goliath and two are gnomes capable of being swamped by the covers, but Scanlan has managed it. It’s more or less circular, and covered with enough blankets and pillows to outfit an entire inn.
“I’m starting to think you’ve been thinking about a Vox Machina orgy for a while now, Scan-man,” Vax says, taking up a position along an outer edge of the bed. Keyleth curls into him and pats the bed for Percy to lie down in the middle. He crawls in next to her, and Vex promptly spoons in behind him, with Grog behind her. Pike unhesitatingly clambers on top of Grog to use him as a mattress, while Scanlan lies crossways along the top of the bed, his head near Percy’s and his feet close enough to Vax’s head for Vax to complain.
“I just have a sense for how to fit things together,” Scanlan says.
The lights turn down low; the ceiling is domed in here as well and soft lights mimic the stars outside. Keyleth starts pointing out constellations, falling asleep after three. Vax isn’t far behind her, his usual watchfulness slipping away in the safety of the mansion. Grog starts snoring mightily, but they’re all well accustomed to that by now. Pike emits her own tiny snores as she lies on Grog’s chest.
“Goodnight, darling,” Vex says, kissing Percy’s neck.
He turns his head to kiss her properly, a slow dance of tongues and lips that leaves them both sighing somewhat giddily. It’s not so dark that he can’t see her smile.
“Goodnight, Scanlan. Thank you for all your hard work making this for us.”
“It was my pleasure, Lady Vex’ahlia.”
Vex doesn’t snap at him for the title, as she is wont to do; her arm tightens around Percy’s waist and then her breathing evens out into the slow cadence of sleep.
Percy expects to be last to sleep, despite how very insistent his body is that it would like to be left alone to recover. He doesn’t feel that his brain will switch off in a hurry.
“Percy,” Scanlan murmurs.
“Mmmm?”
“Are you feeling all right?”
“A little sore.”
“I meant mentally.”
Percy considers this. “I’m afraid I’ll wake up in the morning and you’ll all have left me behind because I’m just too—too wrong in the head.”
Scanlan’s hand brushes the top of his head; Percy reaches up to grip it. “We wouldn’t have done this just because you said it. We all wanted it as much as you.”
Percy thinks of Orthax and of just how sharp-edged and deep and dark desire can be, and lets out a quiet negatory sound.
“We did,” Scanlan insists. “Pike told us that the zone of truth spell meant you had to be honest—”
Painfully honest. He’d been aware of the spell, but unable to think of an answer to the question that was properly evasive, and the truth had been drawn out of him one blushing word at a time.
“—and Keyleth said the least we could do was repay your honesty with our own, and then Vax said he’d, what was it? Bang you like a goliath hitting rocks together to light a fire.”
“Did not,” Vax protests from the shallows of sleep.
“Well, anyway. We all expressed our interest in our own ways, and then it was just a matter of logistics, timing, and—”
“Telling me.”
“That was the hard part.”
Percy remembers how Scanlan had broached the subject by popping his head into Percy’s workshop and bluntly asking, “Remember that whole seven-way fantasy thing you mentioned? Are you still interested?”, and says, “It didn’t seem that hard for you.”
“Well, just because you had the fantasy didn’t mean you wanted it. People think all kinds of things in the privacy of their own minds. You just didn't have any choice about speaking it.”
“I wanted it,” Percy says quietly.
Scanlan’s hand tightens on his. “I know. So did we.”
“Shup, Sca’ln. Tryna sleep,” Pike murmurs, not particularly indignantly.
But Percy’s glad of Scanlan’s words, and he thinks Scanlan’s glad to be sure that everything that has passed between them all this night won’t turn out to have been a nightmarish idea in the morning.
“Love you all,” he says into the half-dark.
Not everyone responds, due to the draw of sleep, but nonetheless Percy feels their love surrounding him, palpable as the physical blankets draped every which way over them.
His fingers slacken and slip from Scanlan’s; as sleep takes him he hears Scanlan begin to hum something that might be a lullaby.