We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Subterranean Garden​/​Subtle Garden

by Pollinator Pathway

supported by
Leries
Leries thumbnail
Leries Where can I send the application to joint this cult? Favorite track: Weeds for Needs/Rusted Open/A Good Burial/The Lay of the Land (Hidden)/Mantis Helper.
r31
r31 thumbnail
r31 You can hear the love and care that went into making this. There's a warmth, even in the coldness of the crumbling walls. There is a gentleness, a hopefulness that stuck with me long after my first listen.
The accompanying narrative pairs perfectly here and it resonated deeply. A beautiful and heartfelt tale. The idea of returning to the cell where it all began is something I'm happy to take with me, to contemplate further. Thank you. Favorite track: Generations of Seeds/Cracked Ceilings/Windseed/Cell Doors, Released/First Free Meal/The Garden on the Roof.
/
1.
2.

about

It was no surprise to you when the ceiling first cracked and started to fall. In the darkness, the nights and days blurred together, but it was not long ago that you heard the screams from the familiar voices of the guards, screams which conveyed fear; such a strange and musical contrast to the yells, which were intended to intimidate.

In the darkness, mostly unattended, you had noticed a few night-plants, requiring only the barest minimum of ambient light to survive. At first, they seeded almost immediately, starved of nutrients and desperate to propagate. You saved the seeds each time, and dug into the crumbling floor where you could, planting them where there was enough space. Sometimes they competed with each other, but those that survived were stronger, waited days longer before creating seed. You were able to pass the time in generations, rather than mundane intervals like days or hours, and the guards were too obsessed with their increasingly empty threats of brutality to notice that the air within your cell grew cleaner, more pleasant.

And so when the ceiling cracked, and bits of daylight flooded in, and the voices of the guards grew hoarse and then stopped altogether, you transplanted the most delicate of the night plants to the darkest corners of your cell.

Before long, the wind blew in seed and spore, and new plants began to appear, and you worked to loosen the stone and clay on the floor to make more space.

Longer still, and more cracks in the ceiling, and more light, which you needed some time to adjust to, and more plants; soon the elements and the roots under the ground shifted the walls of the prison enough that the cell doors began to spring open, one by one, after perhaps four or five days of subsisting on seeds and stalks, and rainwater which came down through the ceiling. You and your fellow prisoners found the grain stores, and you all ate gruel enough to stave off your hunger. You pocketed enough of the dried grain before cooking to plant, and when you showed your comrades the night-garden which you had carefully cultivated in your cell, and then the handful of wheat and rye you had pocketed, they all were filled with understanding.

Upstairs, you found what you expected - a battalion of guards, lying dead. Their killers were cruel enough to lock the doors to the outside world behind them, but for the first time the scope of your freedom became clear. Some rooms remained intact amidst the decay of the overall building, and others, with their crumbling ceilings and floors, could be planted - some plants could be used to feed, while others could be used to further destabilize the building, allowing in more air and sun.

And when the weather grew warm, and you and your fellow freedmen spent more time on the roof of the old prison - still cautious, as you wanted to preserve the appearance that the building and all its former inhabitants had long since perished - you began to see what grew freely in the surrounding lands, when the grounds went unmaintained. Bird droppings brought plants from faraway lands, particularly wild grains that flourished in the subterranean garden. With coordinated effort, you were able to plant beds on the roof, growing your stores of food even as the supplies in the scullery dwindled. The doors had rusted open by then, and immediately you set to sowing those wild plants which needed little encouragement, grew tall, and gave the appearance of overgrowth to those to whom a plant was simply a plant.

Life was hard for quite awhile, but the taste of freedom nourished almost as much as the small meals. Some of your lot died due to malnourishment, or due to disease, and even the few plants you grew as medicine could do little more than comfort them as they passed. But they died free, and grateful for that small mercy. And you were honored to bury them free - to give them a more respectful internment than they would have gotten as prisoners.

And as you grew to know the grounds and the surrounding land, and found small places to grow subtle gardens, disguised with thicket barriers, with plants that nobles had rejected for years out of ignorance. You would leave the grounds at night to avoid detection, and spend all day tending and exploring, and return only under cover of night. Soon you and your fellow freedmen were all but masters of the land, able to forage and trap in the forests with impunity. Though you would always go to sleep a little hungry, it was starting to seem like a good life, hidden though it was.

And the joy, the sheer joy, when, less than a year into the work you saw the fauna grow alongside your irregular gardens - bees, yes, and wasps, ants, bats at night. Butterflies and moths working in ephemeral tandem. You counted, and celebrated, each sign of health within the small systems your group of freedmen tended. Sometimes you were forced to hide from small battalions, and sometimes had to frighten away lone explorers; but even with these reminders of your tenuous freedom, it was hard not to feel a sense of balance returning to your lives and the world.

And so you would live the rest of your days. But as your position in the old prison - which you soon renamed as a monastery - became more established, you would sometimes return to that cell where it all began, where now you cultivated nightflowers, and cared for them with the aid of mantises which helped you to maintain the balance.

credits

released February 3, 2021

Pollinator Pathway is naive synthesized music about the sustaining ability of cultivation, even in the face of overwhelming cruelty and dehumanization. Recorded live, on two keyboards.

Dedicated to Robin Flowers and Sam Moth, in your own ways.

Artwork by Sam Moth.

Pollinator Pathway is not considered a part of the official Herbalists canon, but given its musical and philosophical similarities, exists within the same world.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

The Herbalists

Naive, nostalgic dungeon synth inspired by tabletop RPGs and 16 bit JRPG soundtracks. All music composed by Adam Matlock except split tracks.
Contact: mystaltree@gmail.com

contact / help

Contact The Herbalists

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

The Herbalists recommends:

If you like Subterranean Garden/Subtle Garden, you may also like: