#This goes on my list of scenes that should've been expanded by at LEAST two minutes

[pianokantzart]

Despite Mario's incredible surroundings– a field of hundreds of thousands of glowing fire flowers– he is sitting dejectedly on a mossy stone, staring down at the hat in his hands.

This is the second time we've seen Mario take off his hat. The first time was when he is settling down at home after a long day’s work, his brother by his side.

Right now, it's his only physical connection to Luigi: the silly newsboy cap/jean overalls combo that make up the uniform of their plumbing business... a uniform that resembles what he and his brother wore when they played together as little kids. 

I imagine Mario’s feels no small amount of guilt on top of his worry. Luigi may have been the one who first stumbled into the warp pipe, but Mario was the one who dragged him outside in the middle of the night to "save Brooklyn." Mario was the one whose failed attempts to fix the city's water pressure led them into the underground warp zone. Why, out of either of them, did Luigi have to be the one in trouble?

“Thinking about your brother?" It's easy for Peach to guess what's wrong. After all, the moment they met Mario's first and main priority was finding his sibling.

"We've never been apart this long." Mario and Luigi have been apart two days, and this is the longest they've ever been separated. There has never been a moment in the past where they tried to go in different directions... not even a childhood summer camp or teen road trip where one of them left and the other stayed behind. Wherever they went, whatever they did, they wanted to be together.

And now here Mario is in this magical world, filled with strange and wonderful things, and his little brother isn't there. Worse, anxious and accident-prone Luigi is trapped in a land cloaked in darkness, in the clutches of some monster Mario knows nothing about, save for the fact that he's dangerous. If there was ever a time he should be there to protect Luigi, it's now.

"Don't worry, we're going to save him." Mario lights up when Peach tells him this.

He has no reason to doubt her. Peach knows this world, knows Bowser, and knows the odds better than he does. She clearly has a level head, and seems confident in what she's saying... he just needs to hold on to hope and keep pressing forward, thankful that Luigi has such good help coming his way.