Chapter Text
The children of Zeus, also known as Jupiter, is a powerful yet endangered species. These weirdos are located in the mountainous regions of Europe, especially concentrated around salt deposits and mountains close to the sea.
They’re only found below altitudes of 2,000 feet during intense thunderstorms, when all of the eligible males in a given area will gather together and see how long they can last flying above the mountains during the peak of the storm while females watch. Those who can fly longest usually claim larger territories and better mates, while those who don’t last long or who can’t fly at all rarely even survive, let alone get a mate.
These beautiful creatures are endangered and have had many laws created around their existence, especially poaching them. At the present day, there are believed to be about 2,000 children of Zeus left, with more dying every year.
One reason for their low population is their highly valuable feathers. These feathers usually come in black, with some having the occasional blue feather, and they’re huge, with the primary flight feathers usually being between 1.5 and 2 feet long to accommodate their wingspan. The feathers are imbued with a powerful electric charge, causing them to regularly be killed and plucked during the 1950s, which brought their numbers down significantly. In 1952, there were reported to be almost 60,000, but by 1961, there were only 25,000 sighted.
The second reason for their scarcity is the fact that they’re just really dumb. When their chicks reach about 3 years old and are able to use their wings, the parents will take them to the edge of the nest and toss them. They usually get it pretty fast and fly back up to the nest, but the unlucky ones go splat and get eaten. It’s also incredibly common for even adults to fly straight into mountains at high speeds, and their mating rituals involve flying to high altitudes during intense thunderstorms, causing many to get struck by lightning and be injured or killed. Many have also died from choking on the meat of children of Hades, due to how tough it is and how often they kill them.
The third reason for their endangerment is that many of them prefer to mate with the same gender. It has gotten to the point they started going for other species. Many of these same sex couples will take over abandoned nests or they will occasionally breed one time with another child of Zeus and then leave to their actual mate to raise the eggs.
As a whole, the species usually has black wings with a wingspan of about 12 feet, sharp teeth, feathers all over their body, and gigantic talons. It’s hard to distinguish them by outwards appearance, with the only indications being their size. Females average around 7 feet tall, while males fall in the realm of 6 feet tall to 6’8. Hatchlings are born with small markings slightly darker than the rest of their skin in the shape of little zigzags. These markings are lost with age.
They’re very quiet, not having much to say, but when they do make noise they can be heard for half a mile at their quietest. An aggressive child of Zeus will oftentimes let out a roar that is described by those who hear it as striking fear into their hearts and has been reported to sometimes cause heart attacks, resembling the sound of thunder. When in distress, they will let out a series of pops, created by breaking their own bones in a desperate attempt to scare their attacker. A sad one might meow or mewl.
Their diet consists primarily of fish, waterfowl, and small mammals, but they can sometimes be seen eating children of Poseidon, usually shared among large groups due to their size. They also love salt, sometimes being seen scaling high cliffs to get to the salt deposits. It’s rare, but they’ve also been seen eating human remains.
Children of Zeus are highly hostile to humans, and are the cause of about 20 deaths annually (this is not exactly accurate, as the bodies are oftentimes eaten or lost). Despite this, some idiots still come to see them and get tossed off a mountain, electrocuted, or used as a flesh piñata.
Once they have reached full size and can fight, a child of Zeus will strike out to find their own territory away from their parents. They will stay alone in this territory, attacking anyone else who enters, until they reach sexual maturity, which is when they’ll start competing with others of their species for mates and territories. This is the third most territorial species.
Children of Zeus have lean, slightly stringy meat. It’s been described to have an almost sweet taste, which is believed to come from when they get their claws on children of Aphrodite and consume their venom along with their meat. Eating their meat was outlawed in 1968 due to their dwindling population, but throughout the late 1700s and early 1800s it was a popular delicacy among rich folk, with the most popular cut of meat being the breast.
Conservation efforts have been attempted, but they’re almost impossible to do sustainably. Due to how high up children of Zeus live and the weather conditions needed to keep them happy (intense rain, thunder, and clouds), keeping them in captivity can cause depression, health issues, and can even kill them. There have been several attempts at conservation, none of them having been successful. Instead, it has been decided that any mountains above 2,000 feet tall in Europe are to be protected, and the children of Zeus that are still alive are closely monitored, with most being tracked.
These beautiful beasts have much to show the world. For example, it is believed that they can predict large storms, are somehow intelligent enough to understand and speak basic sentences, and might be able to interact with other species. Even if they’re a bit dumb and aggressive, they deserve to live.