Cirrus

"Good afternoon, mister kitten."

Cirrus is a bright but broke student. She spends her days in the glistening, rich campus town that surrounds her prestigious college, but buried under student debt, Cirrus works several odd jobs. Her schedule is gratefully different from the most miserable months of her life: freshman year, which she spent penny-pinched and overloaded on classes. However, her one track mindset helped her cram most of her required curriculum in her first year, allowing her to pick and choose her sophomore lecture time so that she only has classes at unholy morning or midnight hours. While most students are attending classes, Cirrus has the employment advantage of being able to work last-minute. Her most flourishing hustle is petsitting. Her employers - old city folk or fellow students - are always nervous about whether complimenting her connection with animals is offensive somehow.

At twilight, Cirrus returns to the rundown neighborhood just outside campus gates. She was born and raised in these cat alleys, but her family moved away on her senior year of high school. Her father made a deal with her that if she could live by herself for a year, she could attend her dream college. At least he never had doubts that she would get in. Cirrus more of less survived, and though she knew her parents loved her, they all quietly knew that it was far easier for an old couple to move without a child.

She spends most of her leisure funds on clothing, and though it started as fulfilling her natural eye for design, her outfits eventually felt like costumes. She tries to soothe her imposter syndrome by acting as genuine as possible. All of her friends see her as an honest, overcompensating workaholic, but Cirrus always feels guilty as walks with them across the Grecian, terraformed campus. It all seems too good for her. She wants to prove that she's earned it somehow.

Despite the familiarity, Cirrus despises her damp trailer home in the park. Most of her family's old friends had left, so she knew none of her neighbors. She channels her dissatisfaction into her architectural studies. After several hours in the school library, her eyes sometimes leave her sketches to gaze up at the domed ceiling as she leans back. Cirrus hopes to build something so pretty in her real home someday.