The Tradition

Soft flow of music filled the busy street. Years have passed, many were dead and many had been born, the place was already modernized with concrete built houses and tarred roads, cars now moved without the support of horses, there were now electric phone that each individual now owned, the days have changed, the place have changed but that tradition remained, the ritual stood firmly, that tower was still there without any changes or modernization, that woman was dead, but her offsprings continued in her ways, that was their purpose, they were known as the Tuners, since the beginning of civilization and after finding of the town, their purpose was to remain in that tower never to see the light of the day or the darkness of the night, never to experience the summer's heat, the autumn's wind or the winter's cold, to feed from those weeds and fruits that grows around them, to always sit in that small space,never to walk, to drink from the puddles of water created by the tiny hole in the roof, to sing the songs that their ancestors were born to sing, they couldn't experience modernisation, they couldn't tell the time of the day, they lived the life of a prisoner. On every thirty years that they have lived, a prisoner who is sentenced to execution would be sent to lay with them to ensure that they would have a child that would continue in their ways and after their forty years of living they would see the bright sun but that would be the day their life ends, they all get beheaded by the Kings. All their generation they always bore girls, with the same feature and stature, with the same breathtaking beauty, with the same pale white skin, with the same grey eyes, with the same plump red lips, with the same curly long black hair, with the same innocence, but the present generation had a slight change, her hair was blonde like that of the prisoner that layed with her mother, she is currently nineteen and very curious, a taboo to her kind but no one could tell since there there was no one to see her except the first princess of the town who would come to indicate to them about how to maintain their menses with leafs when they age twelve.

There was a story that had been passed through several generations about the coming of tuners, it was said that a very powerful, wealthy and proud warrior founded a town after he got banished from his town of origin, then suddenly decided to marry another wife after ten wives, he sent for many young maidens but none caught his eyes then he became so desperate and sent his most trusted men to find the most prettiest maidens that a person could ever imagine to be alive and bring her to him, months passed and the men finally returned but still he wasn't satisfied with any of the ladies that was brought back, many thought he was going crazy with his desperate search for a pretty lady, many believed only angels could be as beautiful as he wished until one day, a lady was found half dead by the stream, even though she was injured no one could deny her breathtaking beauty, rumors spread through the town that an angel fell from heaven to their town to fulfill the man's wish and as soon as the lady recovered he married her, but she could mostly be reffered as his kept bride, a bride he only checks on when he wanted to aporeciate her beauty and her melodious voice, she was known to be a very beautiful singer that she earned the nickname melody. As the years passed the lady fell in love with the man's eldest son and they began their secret affair but it didn't last long, the man soon found out, he got angry and locked the lady away in a tower which he erected in the middle of the town, he denied her freedom and made her sing to him every day, while he locked his son up in the dungeon as a prisoner but he never realized the lady was carrying his son's seed, she would plead for mercy with many of her songs but she was never pardoned, she became so dejected and broken, no one ever came to check on her, to know how she was fairing, even when she had her child she only became very ill and still she would sing as loud as she could in hope to be freed, many years passed and the man still couldn't get over the fact that he was cheated on, it felt like his pride was trampled upon, he soon couldn't hold it any more anymore, he walked up to the tower and beheaded the lady and when he saw her little clueless child his anger brewed more, he went straight to the dungeon where he had locked his son and killed him too then he locked the little child up and made her a slave to the town, all she did was sing the songs she learnt from her mother, eat the fruits and weeds that grew around her, excrete in the little hole her mother had dug in a corner of the room and drink from the little puddles of water coming from the leaking roof and that was how the tradition began.