Eighteen Summers

The wicker basket smelled of hay and unfamiliar hands, but what made Susan's hackles rise wasn't the strange scents—it was the silence that followed her arrival. These corridors absorbed sound differently than the Pembrokeshire kennels where she'd spent her first eighteen weeks, swallowing her small whimpers and returning only the echo of distant footsteps on stone.

"Happy birthday, Lilibet." The deep voice carried the careful warmth of someone delivering a gift that meant more than its recipient could yet understand. "She's from Rozavel Golden Eagle's line. Best breeding in Wales."

Susan pressed herself against the basket's corner as enormous faces appeared above her—humans whose scents carried layers of complexity her puppy brain couldn't yet decode. Authority mixed with affection, duty seasoned with something that might have been worry. The youngest face, belonging to a girl not much older than Susan in relative terms, wore an expression of delighted uncertainty.

"She's perfect, Papa." Lilibet's voice held notes of genuine pleasure undercut by something Susan's breeding recognized instinctively—the careful modulation of someone who'd learned that private reactions might become public property. "What's her name?"

"That's for you to decide. She's yours now."

Yours. The word settled over Susan like a collar she hadn't known she was waiting for. Through the basket's gaps, she watched the girl—Lilibet—extend tentative fingers that smelled of morning tea and the particular soap used by people whose hands were frequently inspected.

"Susan," Lilibet said after a moment's consideration. "She looks like a Susan."

From the kitchen corridor, fragments of conversation drifted toward them like smoke from a distant fire.

"...eighteen today, can you believe it..."

"...won't be long now before..."

"...constitutional lessons with the Archbishop next month..."

Susan's ears, bred for detecting the subtlest changes in flock behavior, catalogued these human exchanges even as her conscious attention focused on the girl kneeling beside her basket. Lilibet's movements carried the unconscious precision of someone trained from birth to be observed, but her scent told a different story—nervous excitement cut with the metallic tang of apprehension.

"Come on then, Susan." The invitation was gentle but determined. "Let's see your new home."

The building revealed itself through Susan's nose in layers of historical sediment. Centuries of cooking fires, decades of floor polish, the lingering traces of thousands of humans who had walked these corridors carrying their own burdens of service and ambition. But underneath the accumulated human drama, Susan detected something else—the wild scent of ancient stone, as if the walls remembered being quarried from hills that had never heard of whatever invisible hierarchies governed this place.

Lilibet's pace was measured, unhurried, the gait of someone who had learned that every movement might be scrutinized for meaning. But Susan's stubby legs, bred for covering rough terrain at speed, quickly established their own rhythm. When the girl paused to allow a group of staff members to pass—people whose scents carried the deference that came with serving someone important—Susan took the opportunity to investigate a fascinating concentration of smells near the skirting board.

"Susan, come." The command was tentative, testing. Susan looked up from her olfactory research, noted the slight tension in Lilibet's posture, and made a decision that would establish the template for their relationship. She trotted over immediately, tail wagging, and was rewarded with fingers that smelled of gratitude.

From the morning room came the rustle of newspapers and fragments of adult conversation that Susan couldn't parse but Lilibet obviously could.

"...Germans falling back across the Rhine now..."

"...victory celebrations will require extensive planning..."

"...when Elizabeth comes of age, the constitutional implications..."

Lilibet's breathing pattern changed subtly—a shift that Susan's herding ancestors would have recognized as the moment when a young shepherd begins to understand the true size of the flock they'll someday manage. The girl's hand found Susan's head, fingers working through fur with the unconscious comfort-seeking of someone processing overwhelming information.

The morning progressed through a series of small discoveries. Susan learned that these floors were slippery but navigable if approached with the right technique. Elizabeth learned that her new companion possessed the corgi's legendary stubbornness when it came to furniture arrangements—Susan had decided that the ornate chair in the morning room commanded the best view of all entrances and exits, and no amount of coaxing would dislodge her from this strategic position.

"She's got character, that one," observed a woman whose shoes carried traces of chalk and the particular anxiety that accompanied educating young people destined for important things. "Reminds me of someone I know."

Elizabeth's laugh held more genuine warmth than any sound Susan had heard from her yet. "Papa says corgis were bred to herd sheep. I suppose she's just doing her job."

"And what job is that, exactly?"

The question hung in the air longer than seemed natural. Susan, from her commanding position on the forbidden chair, watched Elizabeth's face cycle through expressions—consideration, uncertainty, something approaching resolution.

"Keeping the flock together, I suppose."

The afternoon brought preparations that transformed the building's usual rhythms into something resembling organized chaos. Susan established herself as unofficial supervisor of these activities, her herding instincts activated by the sight of staff members moving with purpose but without obvious coordination. She appointed herself guardian of the dining room, where elaborate arrangements were taking shape under the direction of people whose scents carried the distinctive markers of perfectionism and barely controlled panic.

"No, the flowers go there. The presents stay on the side table until after dinner."

"Has anyone confirmed the guest list?"

"The photographer will need natural light for the formal portraits."

Susan absorbed these conversations while maintaining surveillance of her territory. When a man whose scent carried notes of silver polish attempted to rearrange the seating without consulting her, she positioned herself strategically and employed the corgi's traditional crowd control technique—a low, persistent whine that somehow managed to express both authority and disapproval.

"I think Susan has opinions about the arrangements," Elizabeth observed, appearing in the doorway with the perfect timing of someone who had been watching the interaction unfold.

"Begging your pardon, Miss, but the dog seems to think she's in charge."

Elizabeth knelt and scratched behind Susan's ears, her touch carrying new confidence. "Perhaps she is. Corgis are bred to manage much larger animals. We probably look like oversized sheep to her."

The comment drew laughs from the staff, but Susan recognized something more significant in Elizabeth's tone—the emergence of someone learning to speak with authority while maintaining warmth. It was a delicate balance, one that Susan's ancestors had observed in countless shepherds who needed to command respect from both flock and working dogs.

Late afternoon brought the kind of golden light that transformed even the most formal spaces into something approaching magic. Susan had claimed a position near the long windows where she could monitor both the internal preparations and the external grounds, maintaining what her breeding recognized as essential situational awareness.

Elizabeth settled beside her on the window seat, both of them watching grounds staff make final adjustments to gardens that would provide the backdrop for evening photographs.

"Do you know what's expected of you?" Elizabeth asked quietly, her words directed as much to the gardens as to Susan. "Because I'm not entirely certain I do."

Susan turned her attention from the grounds to the girl beside her. Elizabeth's scent had evolved throughout the day—the metallic tang of morning anxiety had given way to something more complex. Determination mixed with uncertainty, duty seasoned with something that might have been excitement.

"Papa says..." Elizabeth paused, reconsidering. "Papa says that service is about putting others before yourself. But sometimes I wonder if I'll be strong enough. If I'll know the right thing to do when the moment comes."

Through the windows, London stretched toward horizons that held more than a city—they held responsibilities that would require decisions Susan couldn't imagine but Elizabeth would someday have to make. Susan pressed closer to the girl's side, offering the comfort that was perhaps her most important function.

From somewhere in the building's depths came a snatch of conversation that drifted through open doors.

"...succession planning needs to be..."

"...when she's Queen, everything will change..."

Elizabeth's posture straightened slightly at these words, but her voice remained steady. "The thing is," she continued to Susan, "I don't think we get to choose whether we're ready. We just have to be ready when the time comes."

Susan's tail thumped against the window seat cushions—not from conscious approval, but from the deep recognition that came with finding her person. This was why she'd been bred, why generations of her ancestors had been selected for loyalty and courage and the particular kind of stubborn devotion that could provide strength to creatures who carried burdens too large for any single individual.

From the corridor came the sound of approaching footsteps and conversations that would soon transform the quiet afternoon into evening's more formal celebrations.

"Time to go, I suppose." Elizabeth stood, smoothing her dress with movements that had become unconsciously regal. "They'll want pictures before dinner, and then there'll be speeches and toasts and all the things that birthdays require when you're not allowed to have them privately."

Susan hopped down from the window seat, automatically positioning herself at Elizabeth's side. But instead of heading immediately toward the door, Elizabeth paused and knelt down until they were eye to eye.

"Let's make a pact, shall we?" Her voice carried the same quiet determination that Susan had heard developing throughout the day. "Let's promise to be brave for each other. When I'm frightened about what lies ahead, I'll remember that you're beside me. And when you're uncertain about this strange new world, you can remember that we're in it together."

Susan pressed her warm muzzle against Elizabeth's palm—a gesture that sealed their agreement more effectively than any formal ceremony. In that moment, both of them understood something that would sustain them through whatever lay ahead: courage wasn't the absence of fear, but the decision to move forward despite it.

"Right then." Elizabeth straightened, her posture carrying new confidence. "Let's go face the music, shall we?"

They walked together toward the sounds of celebration, their footsteps creating a rhythm that was both ending and beginning. Behind them, the golden afternoon light began its slow fade into evening, but ahead lay a birthday party, photographs that would become something more than family snapshots, and the first night of a partnership that would endure through decades of change.

Susan's tail wagged with each step, not from nervous energy now, but from the deep satisfaction of knowing exactly where she belonged and why she was there. These corridors no longer felt strange—they felt like territory to be protected, a flock to be managed, a purpose that would grow and deepen with each passing day.

The girl beside her walked with increasing confidence toward rooms full of people who would celebrate her eighteenth birthday while privately calculating what her maturation meant for things far beyond birthday parties. But Elizabeth was no longer walking alone, and Susan was no longer uncertain about her role in this vast, complex world.

They had found each other, and in doing so, had found the courage to face whatever lay ahead—together.