Ecliptic reference frame for satellite orbits in JPL Horizons

I'm trying to get orbital elements for natural satellites of all the plates with respect to their system's barycenters and I don't see how it is possible that using the ecliptic as a reference plane always produces a viable result.

Here is an example of an input:

Notice below how Pluto's orbit goes way off the ecliptic (considering heliocentric ecliptic here but the argument also works for geocentric ecliptic). How is it possible then to obtain Charon's orbital elements wrt to the ecliptic if the entire Charon orbit ellipse never crosses the ecliptic plane? What does the longitude of the ascending node that Horizons returns even mean, if the orbit plane and the reference plane never cross?

Keep in mind that using the other option in the drop down for body mean equator doesn't really work since the reference body is just a barycenter point

Here is the output for the input above:

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Revised: Jan 26, 2018          Charon / (Pluto)                            901

Fit to all available observations including New Horizons encounter tracking.

SATELLITE GENERAL PHYSICAL PROPERTIES (PLU042, IAU2009, and derived values):
GM (km^3/s^2)           = 102.271      Density (g cm^-3)      = 1.65
Radius (km)             = 605          Geometric Albedo       = 0.372 +- .012
Mass (10^21 kg )        =   1.53       Hill Sphere radius, km = 664
Surface gravity (cm/s^2)=  27.9        Escape velocity, km/s  = 0.581

SATELLITE GENERAL ORBITAL DATA:
Semi-major axis, a (km) =  19596       Orbital period, days   = 6.38723
Eccentricity, e         =  0.0002
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Ephemeris / WWW_USER Thu Feb  8 12:42:39 2018 Pasadena, USA      / Horizons
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Target body name: Charon (901)                    {source: plu055l_merged}
Center body name: Pluto Barycenter (9)            {source: plu055l_merged}
Center-site name: BODY CENTER
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Start time      : A.D. 2000-Jan-01 12:00:00.0000 TDB
Stop  time      : A.D. 2000-Jan-01 12:01:00.0000 TDB
Step-size       : 1440 minutes
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Center geodetic : 0.00000000,0.00000000,0.0000000 {E-lon(deg),Lat(deg),Alt(km)}
Center cylindric: 0.00000000,0.00000000,0.0000000 {E-lon(deg),Dxy(km),Dz(km)}
Keplerian GM    : 6.9165565958516879E+02 km^3/s^2
Output units    : KM-S, deg, Julian Day Number (Tp)
Output type     : GEOMETRIC osculating elements
Output format   : 10
Reference frame : ICRF/J2000.0
Coordinate systm: Ecliptic and Mean Equinox of Reference Epoch
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JDTDB
EC    QR   IN
OM    W    Tp
N     MA   TA
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$$SOE 2451545.000000000 = A.D. 2000-Jan-01 12:00:00.0000 TDB EC= 2.072743604774027E-03 QR= 1.739208931057318E+04 IN= 1.128984926230046E+02 OM= 2.274012844469266E+02 W = 1.445907325672654E+02 Tp= 2451541.877754761837 N = 6.549200579117892E-04 MA= 1.766725371869484E+02 TA= 1.766862878182623E+02 A = 1.742821352870745E+04 AD= 1.746433774684171E+04 PR= 5.496854091594919E+05$$EOE
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Coordinate system description:

Ecliptic and Mean Equinox of Reference Epoch

Reference epoch: J2000.0
XY-plane: plane of the Earth's orbit at the reference epoch
Note: obliquity of 84381.448 arcseconds wrt ICRF equator (IAU76)
X-axis  : out along ascending node of instantaneous plane of the Earth's
orbit and the Earth's mean equator at the reference epoch
Z-axis  : perpendicular to the xy-plane in the directional (+ or -) sense
of Earth's north pole at the reference epoch.

Symbol meaning:

JDTDB    Julian Day Number, Barycentric Dynamical Time
EC     Eccentricity, e
QR     Periapsis distance, q (km)
IN     Inclination w.r.t XY-plane, i (degrees)
OM     Longitude of Ascending Node, OMEGA, (degrees)
W      Argument of Perifocus, w (degrees)
Tp     Time of periapsis (Julian Day Number)
N      Mean motion, n (degrees/sec)
MA     Mean anomaly, M (degrees)
TA     True anomaly, nu (degrees)
A      Semi-major axis, a (km)
PR     Sidereal orbit period (sec)

Geometric states/elements have no aberrations applied.

Computations by ...
Solar System Dynamics Group, Horizons On-Line Ephemeris System
4800 Oak Grove Drive, Jet Propulsion Laboratory