“Princess?” Vio asked softly, pushing his way through some small, scraggly, and somehow-not-dead-yet trees on the far side of the mountaintop. “Are you here?”

The only thing he received in reply was his echo.

Vio sighed and ran a hand through his bangs. He'd really thought there was a good chance she'd be in here, perhaps hiding from Vaati after a cleverly constructed escape. He wouldn't put it past her; she was, after all, extraordinarily clever.

After another minute spent scouring the thin growth for signs of life, Vio gave up and moved on – or rather, he tried to. Unnoticed by him until it was far too late, one of the scraggly branches of the trees had become hooked in the fabric of his hat. When Vio moved away, his hat noticeably did not follow him.

Vio's first reaction to having his hat removed by an outside force was to automatically assumed Vaati was attacking, and his resulting response carved a deep slice into three different trees and cleared all the shrubbery within a five-foot radius. It did not, however, dislodge his hat.

Once he realized what had happened, Vio spent a moment being thankful that none of his brothers had been there to see his embarrassing display, then reached up and attempted to tug his hat free.

'Attempted' being the operative word, because his hat remained firmly stuck.

Vio's mouth tugged into a frown, and he gave his hat a sharper pull. Nothing happened. He looked around for a moment, rolled over a dead stump, and stood on the wood to try and disentangle the fabric that way. The problem was that, in his earlier tugging, he'd firmly trapped his hat around the wood in the process.

Vio's frown turned into a full-blown scowl. Yes, Zelda was important, and yes, if she ever found out about this he would probably get into so much trouble.

But this tree had messed with his hat. This had just gotten personal.

----

 After searching a couple alcoves and surveying the general area, Green concluded that the only thing inhabiting this section of the mountain other than himself were rocks and a few small lizards with exceedingly bad judgement in home locations. He let out a frustrated huff of air and stalked off to find out how the others were doing. In the distance, he could see Vio struggling with... a tree?

That seemed interesting, Green decided, and kicked his pace up into a jog, arriving at his destination a few moments later.

“Why are you losing a game of tug-of-war to a tree?” he asked in an amused tone, causing Vio to jump a good six inches into the air in surprise.

“Because,” Vio grunted, pulling, “it's a very tough and scraggly tree and my hat is very stuck to it, and I'm afraid that if I pull too hard I'll rip the fabric.”

Green winced at the thought of a ripped hat. “Well... have you tried better leverage?”

The look Vio gave him was drier than a desert. “Of course I tried better leverage. That was the first thing I tried. Who do you take me for, Blue?”

“Hey, Blue's pretty smart,” Green argued. “He just puts it towards swordplay and things.”

“Yeah, I know,” Vio conceded. “Now, have you got any better suggestions?”

Green took a step backwards and surveyed the tree. While it was quite short, twisted, and knobbly, it was also just tall enough that getting Vio's hat back was a piece of work. But because it was short, twisted, and knobbly, it was also a fantastic climbing tree.

“I'm gonna see if I can get at it from above,” Green decided, and set about doing just that. He got up the trunk and onto the branch just fine, but on his way out to the hat's location his leg slipped, sending him sliding towards the ground – until the strap that held his scabbard on his back got caught on a large protruding knob in the bark.

Green now found himself dangling about five feet off the ground, held up by a piece of equipment that he couldn't reach and a piece of tree that he couldn't break. Flailing proved to be of no use either, as it only resulted in him swinging a bit. He finally gave up after a few minutes and just let himself hang limply.

“Little help?” he asked plaintively.

Vio, in between snickers, reached up and gave Green's leg a strong tug – only to have Green's boot come off his foot instead and smack him in the face. Vio went down hard with a bruise on his forehead, and Green was left with a rapidly-getting-cold foot and a significant lack of a way down.

And through it all, Vio's hat hadn't budged.