Outcast (a Percy Jackson AU)

Lyre

Will
     I woke up in the dingy hotel barn that I had stayed on last night. I usually slept in the alleyways, saving money. I hoped to one day have enough to buy my own house. However, it had started snowing last night and the wind was so bitterly cold that I paid ten coins to sleep on a pile of hay, my lyre tucked underneath one arm.
I sneezed and got up to move. I didn't want to lose time. Getting to the marketplace early was essential to secure a good spot. Established shopkeepers could wake up Mayer, but peddlers and beggars made good time to find a suitable spot.
My stomach was hollow, but I only had a few coins left. It was hard to save up when food was so expensive. The few coins I did manage to keep onto for longer than a day usually ended up paying for random expenses: the occasional fine for panhandling and bribing shopkeepers to let me play by them. They usually tolerated me as my music brought some attention. However, there were much better musicians. I was fairly mediocre.
When I had been little, I dreamed of being a doctor. I wanted to help heal people. After my mother's death, that dream was painfully put off, but stronger than ever. If I could help one person not lose their mother as child....
My stomach rumbled as I walked. I tried to ignore the pain I felt whenever I thought of my mother. It was impossible not to kiss her sweet scent of honey as she tucked me in at night or her long, nimble fingers playing the lyre that I held in my hands.
I finally found an empty spot. The shopkeepers were in foul moods today. The rain had lifted, but the air was shockingly cold. I sat down and began to play the lyre, hoping that the sweet music would take away the pain.
Thalia
    I woke from a nightmare, one again. For the past month, I had woken up from nightmarish dreams of my brother. Even the absence of sleep didn't shake off my unease. I worried about Jason constantly, but what could I do? I never wanted to see my mother again. So I stayed away, cowardly keeping to the streets. Confronting my mother scared me even more than those dreams.
   My mother was horribly alcoholic. She drank away her sanity. She was reduced to living to the next drink: something she could do because of her fortune from her deceased father. My brother stayed with her. How he handled her, I had not but guesses.
I was still thinking of Jason when I was at the water pump, hoping to water my patches throat. I saw an unfamiliar girl with messy, chocolate-brown hair in a braid. She was startlingly beautiful, but even more shocking was the person beside her. He was taller now and looked so much more grown-up, but the scar around his mouth (he tried to eat a staple!) was present as always. We locked gazes and I felt my heart drop. "Thalia?" he asked.