A/N: This is just introductory. The next chapters will be a bit simpler and more interesting, I hope :).
Disclaimer: As much as I wish I were Rick Riordan, last time I checked I wasn't :(.
A slight, dark-haired girl sat in the shade of a willow tree, dipping her feet in the lake. Her surroundings, though beautiful, seemed to bear an air of a distant sadness that encased the grounds. The large, white building standing not far from the water, but up a hill, looked down on them, bearing a sense of strictness and sterility. The girl trailed her hand in the water and looked up at the sky, which was darkening. It was Anh Sáng Mặt Trời orphanage, Vietnam. Buried deep in the hills, but surprisingly near Ho Chi Minh city, it was home to nearly a hundred girls: each wearing the same thin grey uniform, each with the same dark hair, the same dark eyes with a look of longing inside them. They were all here for a reason: there was no-one left to take care of them, and so they were: well behaved, well cared for and clean, but always under the thinly veiled threat of expulsion. Life in the streets was dangerous, difficult and much worse than at the orphanage. Life at the orphanage was sad, cold and lonely, filled with hard work, both academic and help in the fields, and a feeling of not belonging here – or anywhere, because nobody belongs at an orphanage.
An orphanage is a shelter, not a home.
The loud sound of a gong startled Thi Lien (because that was the girl's name) out of her thoughts. She jumped up and ran back to the building, because those late for supper would not have any. Her bare, tanned feet made no sound as she entered the dining hall. Supper was a small bowl of rice – it was not much, but it was better than nothing. The room was white, like all the others, with two long, scratched and rusted tables and mismatched, damaged chairs. Thi put down her chipped bowl and sighed. All the cleanness in the world would not cover up the fact that the orphanage desperately needed money, money that those who had a lot of would never know the true value of.
Thi took a deep breath before entering the dorm, which housed all the 11 year olds – twelve girls in total. Friendships were rarely forged here: it was not unusual for someone to fall ill and be moved somewhere they could be cared for better, someone to be adopted or someone to just vanish one night and never come back. Those who had been here longer smiled at each other, spoke and played the occasional game, but true friends were hard to find. Thi wasn't liked anyway. She was different, and people would whisper about her in the corridors when she passed. They would tease her for not being good at school, and sometimes she would be punished for not paying attention. She couldn't help it, but she was still called lazy. Punishments were extra work, cleaning, and, more often than not, caning. She ran a finger down a scar on her arm as she lay down on the bamboo mat she slept on. She closed her green eyes, another mark of her being different. And for the tenth time that day, as she slid her finger down one of the scars, she tried to convince herself she didn't care. Not about family, not about friends, not about anything. And she didn't even want a home. Did she?