The Legend of the 8th Dragon

There are twelve reasons why the 8th dragon slept by the gold. One of the main reasons was to guard the gold for the mother land.

The legend begins with two sides of a gold coin. One side has a dragon breathing hot fire on suspected thieves and the other has the face of a dark queen. Queen Shabaka is her name. She is known throughout the southern hemisphere for being the most beautifully brutal Queen of all time. Legend has it that she was so brutal that she fed her enemies to her dragons. 

Ancient prophecies foretold of a final battle that the brutal Queen would have to overcome to protect her people from a lion that slept in the northern hemisphere, this lion would eventually awake to face off against her dragons. Queen Shabaka sacrificed innocent blood to the evil deities to try to stop this prophetic vision from taking place. In every war that she won, she beat her enemies into brutal submission. Her execution tactics led her territories to be ruled with fear, but just like every tale, all things must come to an end. On Queen Shabaka’s fiftieth birthday she had a dream that she’d fell in love and had beautiful children. When she told the dream to her faithful servant, the virgin Queen began to change. In all of her years of living, she had never had such a dream. Gracefully awaking in a very dark room that rarely let in sunlight she noticed a ray of light seeping in through a small crack in a distant corner of her huge room. Touched by her new dreams and the sunlight, Queen Shabaka started to feel something in her heart. It was as though the good spirits were calling her, as though some other worldly force had been giving her a new feeling to embrace. A new way to live. The next day at a formal execution, Queen Shabaka was seen putting out her ceremonial flame and letting her victims go free. This was a woman who in all of her years of living had never shown any form of mercy. 

“I desire a child,” she said to her servant Dombuku while feeding her dragons.

“But, great Queen, you cannot have children,” her servant explained.

“The good spirits gave me the vision of children, if I can not have them, I will adopt them. First, I will adopt Useem, the lion tamer, he seems like a great young boy.”

In less then three months, Queen Shabaka had an entire palace filled with orphaned children. Her wealth of knowledge in every form of art was enough to feed her orphan family with the greatest food of all, knowledge. Raising children became her new passion, but to her enemies they saw this as a weakness. 

“See how overwhelmed she has become,” they would say, spreading the gospel of hatred to stir up the war pot. They soon began to plot against her and her dragons, who also were hungry for fresh meat that she had deprived them of for months. 

“Great virgin Queen, your people send you a message. In respect and honor, great Queen, we have never seen you so passionate and merciful. For the first time in history we have witnessed you share with the poor and hungry. We, your people, are very pleased and will fight to the death for you,” the messenger said, while reading to her the message from her people.

“How hard is it to go from brutal to merciful? How hard is it to go from a steel spine to a compassionate leader? Dombuku, something has changed me. Every morning I now let in the sunlight, but I fear that my dragons have grown too hungry. How hard is it for a compassionate Queen to settle the burning vengeance of her enemies?” The great Queen said to her servant while watching her hungry dragons feed on her people.

“Great Queen, a beast is a beast. It’s nature. Whatever has become of you is from God. You’re not a beast anymore. You’ve become the lioness that defeats the dragons in the prophecy. You’ve become the fresh rose growing in a field of old thorns. Please fight for us now and not for yourself,” Dombuku asked.

The great virgin Queen with her palace of orphans then waged war against the hungry dragons, but they were just too strong. The more that they fought, the more the dragons fed. 

“Great Queen, only a beast can defeat a beast,” Dombuku explained.

Understanding his statement, the Queen released the 8th dragon. He was bred to serve only her. This was the biggest and strongest dragon. She also got help from her son Useem’s lions, but with the defeat of her dragons, her enemies saw another weakness and they quickly began to attack. 

Dombuku noticed a streak of grey hair growing from the great Queen’s head. 

“You’ve grown wise great Queen. God is with us. Now we fight for good,” Dombuku explained.

Queen Shabaka’s story spread across the world. Her once isolated kingdom had grown stronger with her fighting side by side with her people. 

She flew through the sky on her 8th dragon while her orphans road on the backs of giant lions. This was historic, legendary stuff.

Queen Shabaka became just that, a legend, and somehow was given eternal life from the good spirits until every orphan child was given a home. Til this day she flies through the sky on her 8th dragon, rescuing orphans in hopes that she will one day be able to rest with the good spirits that gave her her eternal duty. Her duty to see every orphan child find a home. Her work is never done. Her story lives on.

Queen Shabaka & the Legend of the 8th Dragon