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"WAAAUGHwaughWAUGHwaughWAUGH," warbled Taji as she was frantically shaken herself, rocking back and forth in her branch with the Ink Princess' motions. "ASHEI thinkIFYOUkeepthisUPI'MgonnaHURL!"

She continued for quite some time even after Ashe had let go of her, head rolling dizzily; it was only after she determinedly dug her heels into the bark and swung herself forward to make her double-over and collapse into her own lap that she finally was able to break herself of Ashe's vicious shaking cycle.

"Ask the people!" said Taji, voice muffled by her own skirt, "Yell at anyone passing below and ask if they can get us down!"

"But you said we were gonna come up here and look at people and laugh at them!" Taji said as she pulled her head up from between her knees to peer confusedly at Ashe beneath a curtain of rainbow-streaked bangs. Reaching up to brush them out of her eyes, the young star spirit looked decidedly less unconcerned now that Ashe was not directly attacking her or the tree.

She could stay up here all day, she thought proudly to herself as she began swinging her legs, and be like Tarzan and swing from tree to tree like on a flying trapeze and wear little leaf skirts and do the hula and--

Oh, but then she might miss Hamtaro. This was simply not an option. Nodding to Ashe to show that she understood what she must do now, she took a deep breath, leaned back a little, and proceeded to bellow loudly and unceasingly: "HELP."

When, a few minutes later, no one came to help, she shrugged to her friend. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Can you hang upside down from your tail and climb down that way? I seen squirrels do it -- well, not like that -- but the climb down upside down with their tails in the air!"

Suddenly determined to try this for herself (even if she didn't have a tail like Ashe did), Taji swung her legs out and, carefully grasping a branch in each hand, tried to slide down enough to gain footing on a lower branch. She proved too heavy to do this safely without snapping either the thin branches she was holding onto or the one she'd be landing solidly upon, so she finally scrambled back into place.

Singing! Maybe that would work?! "What kind of songs? Um. Um--! ...Can't touch this! Na na na na, NAAAA NAAA! Can't touch this! My-my-my-my music hits me so hard it makes me say oh my lord!"

"I did!" Taji yelled after Ashe, chin wobbling a little. She wasn't just going to leave her here in this tree, was she? Ooh, Taji knew she should've asked for a tail for Christmas... "The branches're gonna break if I move too much! AAASHE!"

Desperate not to be left behind, she took a firm hold of the junction of branches she was sitting in and swung herself down, scrambling to get ahold of the steadier tree trunk and to keep up with her friend.

"I'm not looking at your undies!" Yelled Taji indignantly, who was doing just that when Ashe yelled up at her. She obediently averted her eyes, concentrating more on trying to navigate through the branches in one piece, before suddenly yelling out "YOU GOT BUNNIES ON YOUR BUTTTTT, I CAN SEEEEE."

This -- underwear, and bunnies on butts, and butts in general -- struck Taji as being very funny, and the star spirit began burting into quick peals of giggles. She had to stop her own climbing to do so without completely falling out of the tree, which she almost did had she not scooted forward and wrapped her arms around the trunk to steady herself.

"Barbies smell funny!" Taji whined, her only helpful contribution to the conversation once the small underwear incident was forgotten (in t-minus fifteen seconds.) "I like My Little Pony though. I like... I like Hamtaro. Hamster dance!"

Momentarily forgetting the tree, Taji tore her hands away from the branches -- presumably to demonstrate the intricacies and culture of the hamster dance to her friend -- and promptly lost her balance and fell the rest of the way to the ground with a small shriek.

It was a short fall, they were nearly almost to the ground by then anyway. "Is ok," Taji said dazedly to Ashe, peeling herself off the ground and rocking up to a sitting position, "My spine broke the fall." She gave the branches of the tree the most evil look she could muster.