Odin Sphere - A Light in the Desolation

For some, there’s more pain in knowing where you’ll go when you die than there is relief. For others, it’s the other way around. You at least don’t have to guess whether you’ll end up resting peacefully or suffering for eternity. You will simply wait for the inevitable to come and accept it.

For a very long time, Ingway had sided with those who would find relief in knowing their final destination. He might not have realized it at the time, but he had known since childhood what his fate would be in death. If he was cursed with an untimely demise, then it should only mean he would end up in a bad place. He was simply not destined to be in the Heavens.

He accepted it, and he did so rather gladly. At least it didn’t matter how many sins he committed on the path to his goal. He would repent for his crimes with a punishment that he deserved.

As time ticked on and The End drew near, however, his relief began to vanish. He was still prepared for what death had to offer him, but there was something wrong. There was something incredibly, horribly wrong.

He noticed that it began sometime during the period when he was a frog, which was strangely also the first time that he felt happy in ages. Despite being stuck as a slimy amphibian, he found the days that he spent with that young fairy incredibly precious. He laughed. He poked fun at her. He even found himself chuckling whenever he tried to get her to kiss him, only to be childishly denied. It was such a beautiful, golden time where he found hope and joy with Mercedes, the Queen of the Fairies.

Then, the incident in Titania occurred.

Using the Pooka’s Curse as a means to subdue the sorcerer Beldor at her battle’s climax had been a foolish choice, but it had saved the Queen’s life. Still, it meant that he had exchanged his life for hers and he collapsed upon the damp stones with limbs completely sapped of strength. Darkness was quickly ebbing away at his vision and he could barely even lift his head to look at a beautifully young face stricken with grief.

He tried to assure that she had done well and that she should leave his foul little form for her own good, but she didn’t. She stayed with the dying little frog who, unknown to her, had committed countless transgressions. She wanted to be with him until the end.

Realizing her feelings towards him in that moment, he felt his heart become completely encompassed by pain. And he knew it wasn’t because he was going to die.

She couldn’t possibly stay with him. Fairies almost never ended up in the Netherworld after they died because of the act of giving their true names back to the Heavens. Even if he waited until time gave out for her, she would never show up because she simply wasn’t supposed to be there.

As her lips touched his small head and broke the curse on his body, he had an epiphany. He would never hear her voice or see her kind face. They would not be able to talk and laugh or even have the chance to hold hands and embrace. The girl he cherished and perhaps even loved would never know his feelings for her.

After he died, he would never see Mercedes again.

~*~*~
The Netherworld was as Ingway remembered it. He couldn’t see his surroundings, at least not yet, but all the noises, feelings, and sensations were there. They were positively abysmal.

Even as a spirit, it felt as though his bones were being chilled to the very core. His ears were beset by the screeches and wails of the damned, causing an incurable ache in his brain, and he could barely breathe, if ghosts could even do such a thing. How was it that one who was dead could suffer such torturous discomforts when that was something reserved for the living?

Maybe that was simply part of his punishment.

Ingway did not move from his spot upon the stony, brittle ground. He simply lay there on his side and took in the beginnings of his new afterlife. Lifting his head, he let his eyelids open and saw for the first time in death the swirling, dismal void that was just barely illuminated by his own figure. Some shapes moved in the distance, perhaps Halja or other punished spirits, although they could have just as easily been shapes made by the mist. How dull.

Sighing, he put his head back upon the ground and continued to lie there in utter apathy. There was simply no use in even bothering. He was better off waiting for the Halja to come find him so they could torment him with whatever they had planned.

…Still, he couldn’t help but wish that he was somewhere warm and full of light.

The passage of time was slow and Ingway was mostly left to his own thoughts. He really could lie there and fall into a repetitive self-chatter of “Woe is me” and “Why could I not find salvation,” but he chose not to. Instead, he let his thoughts focus on her.

Little Fairy Queen Mercedes, the girl who rose from a spoiled, indecisive Princess to a powerful monarch who led her troops to victory against the Demon Lord. She had broken the Balor, the most powerful magic flail in all of Erion, with her own magic bow, Riblam. Guiding the Kingdom of Ringford with her own two hands, she was to lead the Fairies and Unicorns into a new era of prosperity where they could live in peace and without fear of invasion.

In a perfect world, that would have been the case.

Dryly, Ingway chuckled. She had risen so high and he had fallen so low. Even if they could be together in death, she would be disgusted with him. At least, he supposed she would. Would she? She had shown compassion to a dragon that had tried to kill her, so maybe she could accept a man with as dark a heart as his.

The thoughts, in an odd way, helped warm his cold core. So he just kept thinking about her. He thought about her smile and her laugh, her little expressions and her manner of movement. She always seemed to dance on her toes, even when she was walking flat on the ground. Again, he found himself laughing when he recalled the disgusted expression she made at his pleads to kiss him and her frequent complaints at him and his frogginess.

Somehow, he found a new glow in his vision. It was a warm, beautiful glow, illuminating and filling him with a new sense of hope and joy. Oh, how the Halja would sneer and seethe when they found out a sinner was actually happy, but he didn’t care. He was just relieved that he had found solace in a place as depressing as the Netherworld.

His eyelids lowered slightly. Was it just him, or was the ground seemingly illuminated as well? The fog around him didn’t seem as thick, either. A curiosity overtook him and he lifted his head, slowly pushing himself up just a little with his hands.

He almost sleepily blinked as his eyes fell upon a single, glowing white flower. It was blossoming on the ground near him…well, actually its stem was coming from a luminescent root that descended from the dismal sky above, twisting and curling until the very end of it lay upon the ground. Funny, a flower growing from a root…

He blinked again, finding that a thread of realization was weaving its way into his system. The Netherworld was a place that was supposed to be absolutely devoid of life. For there to be a root coming down into this place was absolutely bizarre, never mind that there was a flower blooming on it.

His eyelids slightly lowered as he looked at the glowing flower. Its six petals were the softest snow white he had ever seen, while its center was a positively vibrant golden yellow. It…faintly reminded him of…

“Mercedes…” the name left his lips without him so much as thinking. It looked exactly like the flowers that she had worn upon her eternally blooming crown. So large, so delicate. He cautiously crawled towards it, almost as though afraid the other spirits would notice his single beacon of hope.

He rose to his knees and bent forward, his calloused hands gently cupping the flower’s blossom as to not accidentally rip it from the stem. He never thought that he would see something that almost seemed to belong to Mercedes in this place. It even smelled like her crown.

“…How did you get down here?” He asked it softly, knowing that he would not get an answer. “You should go back up to the realm of the living. The Halja will surely cut you down if they find a live plant growing here.”

He breathed in its scent deeply. There wasn’t simply a single aroma. There was that of roses and lilies, violets and poppies, verdant fields and morning dew. It was so small, yet it positively breathed the essence of life.

“You remind me so much of her,” he told it. “Could you possibly be a piece of her sent down to comfort me? If so…if so…”

He didn’t want to think it. He couldn’t think it. It was too horrible to think it. So he simply drew himself close to the flower, letting its fragrance fill his nostrils and drift into the very essence of his being. Finding himself feeling sleepy, he carefully lay down next to it and let its silent sway act as his lullaby.

“Say…” he asked as his eyelids lowered. “Promise me that you’ll still be here when I wake up, okay? I don’t want to be left alone.”

Somewhere, either from far above or from within the flower itself, he got his answer from a voice. A lovely, soft-sounding, familiar voice.

I won’t leave you, Ingway, because I love you and will always love you.

Always…

He smiled and closed his eyes, letting his soul drift into a place where he could, at least, dream of them together.