A long, long, long time ago, long before the trees and the plants were created, before the normal farm animals we see today were living amongst us humans, lived these massive, scary dragons who would roam about the free land, from planet to planet, hunting each other in order to stay alive, consuming other smaller dragons not only to starve off hunger, but as a means of gaining power over all the other dragons.

The fighting between the dragons lasted decades. Night and day and for hours on end the millions of beasts battled each other in the hope of totally conquering all that was in their site. After what seemed like an eternity of fighting, finally the fighting stopped when only ten dragons were left. The dragons agreed to go their different ways, and instead of conquering each other, they would conquer the eight planets and make living conditions so bad that no other form of life would ever disturb them in their respective planets.

All the dragons initially agreed, until one of the dragons pointed out that there were ten dragons but only eight planets to rule over. Compromises were attempted, but none could make all of the dragons happy. This brought frustration amongst the dragons, frustrations that quickly turned into anger for two dragons in particular. The two fire dragons started battling each other in the middle of the peace talks, which resulted in the other dragons flying away to the next planet to continue these talks on a separate planet. The fire dragons battled for so long that temperatures increased so much that the planet turned into what looked like a flaming ball. The fire ball caused so much heat in the planet that every year the ball would get hotter and hotter. This would later be called the planet Mars. With two dragons gone, the talks went smoothly soon afterwards.

The Ice dragon claimed what would later be known as Neptune and made it so cold that no being would ever dare come. The Water dragon chose what would be later known as Uranus because of its blue outer layer. The Smoke dragon took Saturn and blew a gas ring to protect the planet. The Speed dragon took Mercury as we know it today. The Dark dragon claimed Venus and the Rock dragon took over Jupiter.

The Earth dragon, however, felt differently than the other dragons. He had long grown tired of the fighting and had no intention of conquering a planet. He felt the need to have a form of living being to be with him. The dragon had the power to create, but along with this power the need to sacrifice goes hand in hand with such an act. The Earth dragon knew that in order to create, it would need to die. This was something it was prepared to do.

Without hesitation, it powered a huge blast that hit the core of the planet and made a big bang, a bang that split the flat, joined parts of the planet and created what would be known as continents. The continents would have countries within them to house the new living form. As the dragon sacrificed itself, a new being was created, a being that had no similarities to the dragons that lived before. Instead, it was smaller; it walked on two feet with smaller hands, eyes, ears, a mouth, etc. They could communicate using speech, called language, which made them able to talk and understand each other well. They would be known as humans from there on.

Millions of them were created. Each human had a different way of thinking and doing things. It seemed well at first until the plague that is greed showed its ugly head in a similar way to that of the dragons. In the continent that was now known as Africa, conflict had risen. The people living in Africa had started disputing who had the right to claim land. The lighter-skinned humans fought and won the right to own land close to the seas so they could trade with similarly coloured humans who occupied the majority of the next continent, called Europe.

The majority of the people continued to fight over land in order to seize and gain power over each other. Some humans who did not agree to the fighting and arguing settled for whatever was left. With most of the countries filled, there was still a massive piece of land left towards the south of Africa. There was a still a vast number of people still without land to call their land. As that group travelled from the north part of Africa to claim it, humans from other neighbouring continents who were surplus in their own countries had come over and had already made the south of Africa their own.

When the Africans came and found them, they were initially angry, as they weren’t sure if the land would be sufficient for all of them to co-exist together and be able to build homes for their families. Tensions were high as the two groups were neck and neck, arguing over who should stay.

In the midst of all the conflict, out of nowhere it started raining. The two large groups were getting wet and standing there arguing wasn’t helping. They saw that with fighting, nothing would be achieved, so they worked together to use the trees and caves as a means of shelter, the men and women showing a unity that was never seen before anywhere in the continents. The men were cutting the trees and using them as doors, while the women took the children inside the cave in order to shelter all the people.

As the rain stopped, the first rainbow formed over the southern land, and all the people came out to witness it. It was a beautiful sight, and the people saw that despite the hardships that occur, there’s beauty behind the madness. There is a beauty that is in that land that can’t be replicated. Even though there will be conflict from time to time with different kinds of people there, in the end, it will be alright. They decided to name it South Africa because it was in the south and was also south so that they could be away from all the countries with their fighting and arguing, keeping the southern people’s magic intact. Away from the rest of Africa, at the bottom to form the melting pot that is the ‘rainbow nation’, a blend of different types of people living in a country could be kept going on its own and not be copied. Thus, the people of South Africa continued relatively in that way for many more years to come.