Work Text:
The Netherworld had always been a land with loose laws, but with Odette gone, and Gallon killed during Armageddon, there was no one left to rule it at all. The dead convened at the abandoned gates of Hel, entire countries arriving all at once, searching for familiar faces.
Among them was the disgraced Prince of Valentine. Certain his sister had perished in the flames, he spent what seemed like an eternity looking for her. But despite his efforts, he never found a trace of her. Every woman wearing red was someone else, every person carrying a chain was a stranger. Eventually, he decided she must have somehow escaped the cataclysm that killed so many. This, he decided, was the only peace he was likely to find in the afterlife.
That was why, when Ingway stumbled upon a small sprout in the fetid earth, he assumed it must have been some illusion created out of his desperation to see the surface world again. But it was there again when he returned, and the time after that, and many more times to come. There was no sunlight or water to feed it, no stray Phozons capable of helping it grow, but it continued to strain upward, defiantly becoming stronger every time he saw it.
Waiting for his sister was agony. He had no one else in the Netherworld to turn to or rely on, and while he was a solitary creature, he'd always had Velvet when he was alive. Though he'd treated her badly, she'd always stood by him, and he hadn't realized how dependent he had become on her until it was too late. Was that why he hated Cornelius so much? Because with him around, Velvet had found someone else to rely on? He'd been able to come up with a myriad of reasons to despise the Titanian while he still lived. Lately, those reasons had become hollow, unfounded. It was Cornelius who granted him relief from Beldor's control. If only for that, he was thankful.
He hadn't seen Cornelius here, either, now that he thought of it. Ingway hadn't been looking for him, but he was certain he would have recognized him if they'd encountered one another. Had he and Velvet found each other among the world's ashes?
He shook his head. Of course they had. Velvet would go to the ends of the earth for Cornelius. Ingway, too, had had someone he would go to those lengths for, but he had never bothered looking for her. It was pointless to do so.
Nothing changed in the Netherworld. It was a realm where fairies, ephemeral as they were, would never go.
I miss her. A simple phrase, meant for no one. I truly wanted to see her one more time. But that was a lie. One more time would have never been enough. He'd been unable to sort his feelings out in life, but in death, even more than his sister's company, he longed for Queen Mercedes' smile.
Perhaps because he was experiencing a new, unique sort of loneliness, he found himself returning to where the plant was growing. It was the only living plant in the entire Netherworld, as far as he could tell, and it didn't seem as though anyone else knew about it. If they did, they surely would have flocked to it; reminders of what being alive was like were cherished as precious treasures in the cold darkness. Finding something that truly was alive, like the sprout, would be even more valuable.
He wondered what kind of plant it would be. For now, it was still small, barely a blade of grass. He dared not touch it. It seemed to be doing well without any interference, and everything else he'd put his hands on had gone to ruin one way or another. He wondered if he should fetch it water, but he had nothing to carry it in, and the noxious green liquid in the Netherworld seemed more likely to kill the plant than nourish it. No, if this plant were to bloom, he would have to let it grow itself - though that did not mean he couldn't watch over it.
As the plant continued its reach for the sky, he spoke to it. It served no purpose other than to help him keep track of the passage of time - without his "conversations" with the plant, it became difficult to realize whether time was passing at all. Confessing his sins to a plant did little to soothe the regret he felt over committing them, but there were so many he could list, once he'd talked about one the rest seemed to spill forth against his will.
Rumors spread about the fabled World Tree from the prophecies making its way underground. Indeed, there seemed to be a thick web of roots above him if he looked hard enough, but that was hardly worth the gossip or excitement he witnessed. But then, they hadn't seen a plant that hadn't already died from the inside out since they were alive, and if he hadn't stumbled upon his sprout in the first place, he'd be in the same position.
As he made his way to his usual haunt, he wondered when he'd started considering it "his" in the first place.
He talked of Armageddon to the sprout. He had been skeptical the World Tree even really existed after seeing everything awash in flames. He had assumed it would be in the fairy kingdom, since there was surely nothing impressive enough to be given such a lofty name in Elrit Forest. He wondered if Mercedes had known which tree it was, if she had fought the Fire Kingdom to protect it.
He wondered if she had died. If she had suffered. There was no way to know, because he'd broken his promise to her. Because he'd died before seeing her again.
He wondered if she hated him for it, and if her feelings for him had ever been strong enough to turn into hate in the first place.
Ingway grew adventurous enough to ask around a bit, but the answers to his questions were always uncertain. Nobody knew the fate of the fairy queen. Some of them had seen her heading toward the remains of her home, and a Valkyrie remembered watching Ringford burn until she succumbed to her wounds. But there was not a soul who knew what happened to Mercedes after she flew into the flames. Anyone who was there to witness it had either dissipated into Phozons, or somehow managed to survive.
He hoped with everything in his being that it was the latter. The thought of such a vibrant person fading away into nothing scared him to the core.
The plant swayed in the rotten breeze, a small white bud swinging back and forth as though nodding in understanding.
As soon as he was able to identify it as a flower, Ingway's anticipation to discover what variety it was became what fueled him. It motivated him to resist the lethargy he felt, and to maintain some sense of a schedule. After a great deal of time following this schedule - knowing exactly how long it had been was impossible, given the nature of the Netherworld - the flower still had not yet bloomed, and he began to feel a sense of urgency. Was it becoming sickly? It didn't seem to need anything while it was healthy, so he hadn't the faintest idea how to help it. He looked it over carefully, and upon doing so, discovered its root. It was surprisingly sturdy for a flower of such small stature, and as he observed it, he noticed it traveled toward a cliff face. If the root had been damaged, he didn't know what he could do to fix it, but an investigation seemed worthy of merit, at least.
When he arrived at the cliff, having seen no fault with the root so far, he was stunned. Several hundred meters up, the root began to intertwine with a bundle of others, forming a beautifully twisted structure leading up, and up, further than his eyes could follow. The root, and therefore the flower itself, was attached to the World Tree. Furthermore, it was the only one that had broken off from the others, forming a peculiar pattern. Ingway recognized it. It first strayed to the west, or at least what he assumed west was, toward the entrance. He'd spent a lot of time there looking for Velvet, and when he'd given up, he headed in the closest approximation to south as he could. The root, too, had made this same turn. And when he'd decided to settle to what was probably the southeast, the root straightened out somewhat. It headed straight for where he'd been, even making an attempt to follow him as it grew. Him, and only him. The rest of the roots were thick and gnarled together, as one would expect of a tree.
This was a marvel to him, but peculiar growth pattern aside, there was nothing indicating sickness in the flower's root, so he headed back to look at the bud itself again.
As he approached his sprout, he could see that it had bloomed in the short time he had left it, all indications of weakness gone, standing more proudly than ever before. A single white flower, with six petals and a bright yellow center. Ingway knew the flower immediately. He'd longed to move a crown of them out of someone's hair so that he could touch it, once...
"Mercedes." It was barely spoken, closer to a peculiar exhalation than anything. His fingertips trembled, ached as he fought back the desire to trace the outline of one of the petals. He dared not touch her. He wished he could remember how to cry.
Nothing changed in the Netherworld. It was a realm where fairies, ephemeral as they were, would never go.
But Mercedes, in all her defiance, had found a way to rest there after all.