Claire had only meant to take a quick nap where no one would find her, but as she woke up she realized it was early morning. The sky was turning light grey outside of the cage, and through the bars she could see the movements of shadows and silhouettes.  The workers of the circus must be up early to prepare for the first show tonight. They’d arrived outside of London yesterday afternoon, and there had been a lot of work for everyone, like it always was when they arrived in a large city.

She ran her hand through her mess of a hair, picking a few straws of hay out of it. It was easy to sleep in Solomon’s cage, since he enjoyed the company and got more hay to sleep on than her other cats. He was rather rare as a white tiger, so he was treated as a king by most. 

“Oh bother, why did I wake up this early…” Claire mumbled to herself, rolled over on her side to try and find a more comfortable position to sleep in. 

She came face to face with the white tiger in the cage. He observed her for a moment, then opened his mouth and yawned. Claire pushed his mouth away from her when she felt the stench of his morning breath.

“What did you eat kid, you stink.” Claire laughed, and petted his back. He leaned into her and purred loudly.

The circus had bought Solomon when he was just a small cub. He’d likely been taken from his family in the wild by hunters or poachers. He’d been scared at first, often crying out in the middle of the night for someone who would never be there for him again. Claire had recognized herself in him, and as she was the lion tamer she’d let him stay with her in her wagon. In time, he got too big to live with her though, so he moved to his own cage. He didn’t like it much at first. He became anxious when Claire wasn’t around. She was the only one who he thought of as family, so she’d visited him as much as possible until he got used to life with the circus.

Claire loved all of her big cats. The lions, the tigers and the panther, but Solomon was special because he was her little kid whom she’d raised. He was as large as any of the others now, but she still thought of him like that. 

She considered getting out of the cage before someone did find her, but the thought soon passed when she fell asleep again.

Elena Dragomirov was the proud manager of the Wanderlust Circus. One of the biggest traveling circuses anyone had heard of. She usually woke up early to prepare for the night’s performance, but today she’d barely been able to sleep. Once she noticed that night was turning into day she put the book that had disturbed her sleep down on the desk in front of her, and sighed.

It was time to make sure everyone else was doing what they were supposed to be doing, whether they wanted too or not. Some were late sleepers and some were just plain lazy, but she couldn’t have that on a first day performance in a city like London. That simply would not do, not for her circus. She had a reputation to uphold, so she got dressed in something warm, made and ate breakfast alone, then stepped outside to deal with whatever problems had already reared their ugly heads.

“Dobroe utro.” She shouted loudly to no one in particular. It was a kind of alarm, and something she said every morning. Anyone who dared to sleep past the initial warning that their boss was awake might come to regret it.