I'm lazy to get the pictures but in the AU, claggor was talking about a certain yellow flower that can purify the air in the undercity but it's not efficient enough I think powder says "not unless you plant a million of them" and milo says "no way" (idk if I'm remembering correctly)
I saw someone also point out some of sky's notebook sketches was on plants and flowers, idk if its canon she's a bio-engineer but I hc it now
I think my s/i first hoped to add greenery to the undercity but wasn't sure how achievable it was. He studies in piltover so he got in touch with sky to ask about the plant stuff so he had some idea. So in the next few weeks we went to the undercity to check out how suitable it could potentially be or if it's a long shot, couldn't hurt to try
Even though the sewage pipes leading to the firelights base is complicated, I feel like if you stand at the right area on top and look down, you could see the gigantic tree?? So eventually he does notice it, maybe from quite a distance so he didn't know there were people there, just that there was some green and sunlight obviously reached there. So he tried to find a way down and one of the firelights caught him like tresspasing or something lmao then he meets ekko later it's along that vein. and explains his thing and ekko wants to help so from then on they worked closely and wren stays over at the base a lot.
I don't think they figured out the thing about the yellow flowers yet, they have just been planting trees.
Not sure about the timeline for the ship lore but then Ekko goes to the AU. During that conversation I mentioned earlier, they were on the topic of plants in the undercity so he asked where Wren was.
They didn't meet in that AU, there were no firelights, the ones improving the undercity was everyone he knew, his friends and family. Himself too of course but not with the firelights, and not with Wren who didn't go down to accidentally meet him in person.
When ekko returns to the og universe he tells wren about the flowers and they'll eventually plant their own. Plus ekko leads a community that he can mobilise to do it on a larger scale. Although in the og verse the air is much worse so it'll probbaly take more than planting flowers to turn things around, but it's some impact nonetheless
It's either that or they already knew about the flowers and were already planting a number of them themselves before ekko went to the AU. So he goes and sees he and wren also did the same, and even were ahead in progress.
I guess what wren represents for him is just. Company in the journey towards what his dream for the undercity could be. In the AU episode in canon ekko says he "gave up on the undercity" so I guess if he had always been independent he would start thinking that. It's when he sees the undercity in the AU that changed his mind, but I feel like that trigger would also happen if he was shown that a way to improve the undercity was to better the environment through nature and involving the community he knows of to plant and be responsible for what they plant. I feel like that's a tangible thing that could inspire him to keep going and was sparked from wren's idea that he introduced to him when they met
Lol idk it's 5am goodnight
