Disclaimer: As always, I don't own anything. QueenAnnabeth18, this one's for you! Thanks for the inspiration! :D
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Thor threw aside the small book with a huff. He had been studying for about half an hour now, and he still did not understand why he had lost so many marks on his homework. He was also feeling extremely jittery and wished he could run around and around outside until he could run no more, but alas, he still had to review the rest of his homework.
"Nerves?" a little voice asked behind him.
Thor turned to see his brother standing in the doorway of the library.
"Yes. I HATE reading comprehension, and I wish I didn't have this stupid test today!" the 8-year-old said.
"SHHH! Not so loud!" Loki hissed looking about, expecting a librarian to pop out from behind a bookshelf to reprimand them.
"Sorry," Thor mouthed
"I can help you study, even though your test is about two hours away," Loki suggested hopefully.
"That would be great! I can't understand why I must write a paragraph about small, insignificant details in the stories the teacher gives us. I mean, what does it matter that the walls are blue?" Thor said, flipping through another of his homeworks.
Loki scrunched his forehead in thought. "Well, maybe it doesn't matter. Unless the character is sad- then the color of the walls would match his sadness… I think," he said.
"I suppose so. You make interpreting stories seem so easy," Thor said with a sigh, "What about-?"
"Ooh! Ooh! I got a brilliant idea!" Loki squeaked, bouncing up and down excitedly.
"Shhhh. What is it?" Thor asked.
"Close your eyes."
"Why?"
"You'll see," Loki said mysteriously, a mischievous grin growing on his face.
Thor squeezed his eyes shut reluctantly and waited. "Now you can open them," his brother said with a giggle.
Thor did so and gawked. Another copy of him now stood in Loki's place. "What did you do? You're… ME!" he exclaimed as loudly as he dared.
"Exactly! Listen, I can take your test for you, and no one will ever know," Loki-in-Thor's-body said.
Thor frowned. "But that's cheating! And anyway, what if someone hears you talk? You still sound like yourself," he said.
"I won't say anything, and if I have to, I'll just talk raspy like you do when you have a cold," Loki said.
"Hey!" Thor began to retort but decided against it. "Fine… I guess."
"I knew you'd agree to it! Never fear, Brother, I'll get you a perfect score," Loki said, shifting back into his own form.
"This is so weird," Thor said as his brother began rifling through his homework and textbook, humming a tune as he did so.
Half an hour later, an unusually confident Thor was strolling down the hallway to the classroom where he was to take his test. He had almost made it to the room when a hand was gently, but forcefully, placed on his shoulder. "Didn't you already take your reading comprehension test?" Frigga asked.
The boy jumped with an undignified squawk, dropping his books. "I'm not Loki!" he said lamely.
Frigga laughed. "Oh Darling, it is quite obvious that you shapeshifted to look like Thor. It is a rather good attempt for a beginner, but it is not at all convincing to me," she said.
Loki turned back to his normal self with a little groan. "I presume you are going to take Thor's test for him?" Frigga prodded. Loki turned beet red and nodded. Of course his mother would have figured out his scheme by now.
Frigga sighed. "I know that you want him to get good marks, but doing his work for him is not the right thing to do. How about I coach him a little before his test, hmm? You can help as well," she suggested, leading him back to the library.
An hour-and-a-half later, Thor took his test. The next day, he, Loki, and Frigga were pleased to find out that he got higher marks than usual. As they took a break from playing outside later that day, Thor remarked, "I guess your idea didn't work out after all, but at least you can use your shape-shifting for all sorts of pranks now!"
"That's true," Loki said absently, twirling a small stick he had used as a makeshift dagger in their game.
"Hey, let's play by the river!" Thor exclaimed, jumping to his feet. There was no reply from Loki. "Loki?" he called, looking around for his brother, who seemed to have vanished in thin air. Just then, he noticed a small movement in the grass and gasped in wonder.
At his feet slithered a long, beautiful snake, its scales glittering brilliant green in the afternoon sunlight. "Loki!" he said excitedly, picking it up to examine it more closely, "Look what I found!"
To his dismay, the snake grew and morphed into a familiar shape. "Hey, it's me!" his brother said proudly, jabbing his stick into Thor's shoulder.
"LOKI!"
