AN: So to all of those who have been reading, many thanks! I've been having some things come up in my home life so posting chapters may come a bit slower, but they will come none the less ^-^! Also if you haven't guessed by now I'm flipping between Mellonah's view and Loki's, I feel that you get more of a full story that way, but I do plan on making a first person view story one of these days.

By the way I have never read the books mentioned in the previose chapter so I don't know what all happens in those books

"spoken" / 'thought' / 'music or memory'

Chapter 4.

He waited. Listening for her nearly silent foot falls to disappear, and as soon as they did Loki sat forward. Gingerly grasping the book that sat on the very top, thick and heavy the simple script read The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

'Odd how this was her suggestion,' His long fingers easily opened the tome to the first chapter, 'It appears to be a recount of their history.' a sneer appeared on his face within the first paragraph, "So much like Asgard, and yet still so primitive."

As he continued reading a low base beat almost like a drum started flowing from the second floor. Glancing behind him Loki listened to the music quickly pick up, it sounded primal yet modern, and the language of the song it's self was unknown to him. It spread though the house, seeping from the stairs, yet it wasn't distracting. As he read, he found the music slightly hypnotic, his eyes flew over the words on the page. The song was looping so it was even easier to ignore.

When it stopped, Loki almost jerked his head up, he also realized that he had read over half of the book. Light foot steps came swiftly down the stairs and into the adjoining room, but he paid them no mind as he resumed reading.

"Loki, do you want anything while I'm in here?" came the nearly honey sweet voice, slightly rough from exertion.

"No." Loki turned the page, as the faucet came on and water flowed. Just as soon as it started it stopped, and he startled as a glass of water was set on the solid wood table in front of him.

She moved quickly back up the stairs, Loki barely had time to see that she had donned an additional peace of white and blue fringed cloth around her hips. Raising a brow at the oddity the woman presented, he returned his attention to the book. It actuality was quite informative on humans, and how they operated.

His concentration was interrupted by quick drumming and a man's voice asking something to bounce. The voice sounded exactly the same as the one singing in the previous song. Making a mental note at what page he was on, Loki put the book on top of the stack, and gingerly pushed up and off of the cushion. Moving slowly, so as to not cause himself more pain, he reached the stairs and started the slow climb up. Finally after too much time had passed, for the song had started for the second time, Loki found the room that the music was coming from. Nudging the door to the side he could see the woman moving in one of the most provocative manners that he had seen. She seemed lost in the music. Hips sliding and rotating in both quick and slow movements, her arms and hands reminded him of the movements that some longer spells called for, and her body as a whole moved in a serpentine manner.

Loki watched as this woman, Mellonah, moved around the floor. As he watched, he found himself wondering why he had never seen this form of dancing.

Then she dropped back. Her head nearly came in contact with the floor as she sat on her calves. Slowly rising her torso, the woman gently pivoted her self in a half circle.

"Are you attempting to kill yourself?" Loki spoke calmly as his eyes followed every movement of her hands.

"No," she stood and turned towards him, "Though it is possible to hurt oneself with a move* such as that."

Her skin was covered in a light lair of sweat, and her face was slightly flushed giving her a tousled almost bedroom appearance.

Loki could admit that she held a... certain appeal, though she was probably like the mindless twits that flocked and floundered around Fandral and Thor. The unbidden image of either of those two wooing the woman before him brought a fire to his blood. This confused him.

'Why would such thoughts bring about a reaction like this. This woman is mortal, an attractive one, yet she will live for a short time and her beauty will fade with age.'

"Is there something you need Loki?" her hand turned a dial on an odd black box, and the sound decreased.

"That infernal sound is distracting." growling at the memory of it and at his straying thoughts.

She seemed shocked as her face became even redder. The blush spread prettily over her cheeks as her eyes became guarded and shy, " I'm sorry, I didn't realize that it was disrupting you. I'll keep it down."

Loki was tempted to give her a snide retort, however he remembered that even she couldn't lie here, meaning her response was honest and sincere. Nodding to her, he turned around to begin the uncomfortable trip to the lower level of the house. That was when he saw all the portraits on the walls of the small hallway. Most of them were of a group of fair skinned mortals, whose hair color varied from pitch black to golden blond, that seemed friendly to the woman who was also in quite a few of these portraits. Only two showed a dark skinned and haired man and a fair skinned dark haired woman.

Unaware of what he was doing he approached what appeared to be a wedding portrait of the two. The man held the same eyes as Mellonah, yet the woman's face resembled her's more.

"My parents." Loki turned slightly to her, not hearing her walk up beside him, "They died when I was little and my godparents adopted me into their family." he glanced at another photo next to the first.

Pail skinned, sandy hair, and generic brown eyes. The standard for a Midgardian he remembered from his earlier visits.

"They raised me along side their son, Kyle, and I was already friends with their niece and nephews." Mellonah shifted her weight, "I never gave it any consideration, that they weren't my biological family. I still don't."

Loki watched as a gentle smile came to her lips and her eyes softened in memory, "They never lied to you?"

"Heh, well Kathrine didn't want me to know who my birth family was at first. She was afraid that I would push her and David away if I knew that I was adopted... but David told her that I would push them away if I found out years later. He used to work for Child Services and had seen similar cases. So they got in contact with my only living relative, Grandma' Leah. She's my mother's mom."

Loki thought of how their beginnings were similar, yet at how different their lives were by that one piece of knowledge, "And your father's family?"

"Papa didn't have any." her voice became solemn, "None that had been alive. His parents had passed away years before he met my mother, and he didn't have any extended family. Though he did share all of his family history with grand-mama or wrote it down, so I'm not lacking in information about my ancestors on his side."

"If... if they hadn't told you. Had they hidden it from you, would you still think of them as family?" Loki's voice was cold and controlled, "Would you still call them father, mother, and brother."

"I don't know." he watched as she reached out and touched her parent's joined hands, "Had they hidden it from me and I found out later? I think that I would be hurt that they had kept such important information from me. I would be angry for a time, yet I would forgive David and Kathrine. They took me in when they didn't have to, sacrificed to raise me as their own, and loved me as if I truly was their daughter."

He continued to observe her as she walked down to a group portrait of five boys and two girls, one of the girls being her in younger years, "I do know that I wouldn't hold it against Kyle... or Ryan, Leon, Sennett, Heather, or Tristan. They... wouldn't keep anything from me if it was truly important. They have their secrets, sure, but if it was that important and they were forced to keep quiet... the guilt alone would hurt them."

"How can you be so naive!" Loki couldn't take it. This woman was raised by a family that wasn't her's, much like himself, but she held nothing against them. No hate, no anger, no resentment. "They would have used you like a tool to further their own agendas. They wouldn't have been burdened by guilt, or sorrow. And yet here you are saying that you would 'forgive them', that you wouldn't 'hold it against them'. You are a fool!"

He cringed at the pain that his panting chest caused him. It seared through him as his blood pounded in his ears, and the memory of finding out that he was not really an Odinson.'No I am Laufey's son.'

Her warm hands touched his abused ribs and a soothing warmth spread around and in him. His harsh breaths turned to calm, and the boiling rage subsided.

"You're hurt." he did nothing as she stepped closer and rested her head on his shoulder, " Not just physically, but emotionally."

"You know nothing of which you speak, wench." came his hissed reply

"Oh?" He could almost hear the smile in her voice, " From that display, I can take a gander that you found out that you yourself were adopted, quite recently." Mellonah looked up at him, "They didn't tell you. You found out by accident, and now feel betrayed that they kept such an important part of you hidden and secret. It hurts knowing that everything that made you different and unique from those whom you grew up with, wasn't because you just had different skills and talents, but beca-"

"Silence woman!" he pushed her away from him, knocking her into the closed door of the studio, "They lied to me! For centuries, they lied and acted. Played the part of a loving family, never once truly caring for me! They adored their true son and gave everything to him. Not once did they show pride in anything that I did."

As he ranted at her, he slowly advanced on her, stalking her like a wild animal ready to pounce if she even flinched. Loki didn't want to hear this woman's, no, this mortal's words. "They never loved me, never truly cared about my ability! Odin never wanted a Frost Giant on the throne of Asgard, and ..." his voice trailed off as he realized his folly.

*The move discribed is called a "turkish backdrop" fun to watch if someone knows how to do it.

The songs discribed here are Tarken's 'Let me see you bounce' and 'Simarik' and I have no claim to them.