ah, this will probably be a short one, if only because i don’t see zelda as having had many pets ! it’s not because she’s not fond of them - she’s an animal lover at heart, this one - but circumstances never truly allowed for them. her father had a dog she was fond of as a child, but he was very definitely the king’s pet, who tolerated zelda for the sake of his master, as he was an old dog when zelda was a toddler, & older still when the plan to stop ganondorf was put into motion. the king kept promising zelda that one day, she would have her own puppy, when she was old enough to be responsible for it & not hand it off to the servants the moment she found herself disillusioned with it, but then zelda’s prophetic dreams began to manifest, & the desire for a pet very quickly slipped away from her. she has always been fond of horses, though - she learned to ride them quite young, as befitting a princess, & had two favourites over the course of her young life. the first was the pony she learned to ride on, a gentle, brown colt she was allowed to name - being three years old at the time, she was very, very proud of the name she came up with, which was dasha. the second was a white stallion, gifted to her for her ninth birthday, which she was told she would learn to ride on once she was tall enough, & once again allowed to name. taking things slightly more serious this time, she decided on the name royale, as it seemed appropriate. it was royale impa chose as the horse to flee on with the young princess when the castle was attacked, though they had to surrender him not long after, as he was too distinctive a horse to use & allow them to still be hidden.
there was no chance she could keep a pet in the years following that. she would do her best to feed stray dogs & cats she met on her travels across the kingdom, but any attachment was a liability - liabilities would get her killed. it was this impa had drilled into her, & it was this mentality she kept as she hid under her new identity. but, that identity didn’t last - long after ganondorf was defeated & the kingdom near-rebuilt, zelda allowed herself permission for a pet. horses were once again housed in the royal stables, including yet another white stallion named royale, but at age twenty-seven, zelda adopted a border collie she named howell, deciding that not every pet needed such a serious name. the royal family kept dogs for years after, following her example, but honestly, zelda loves almost all animals - if circumstances hadn’t been what they were, it’s likely she’d have had a small menagerie as a teenage princess, & honestly, who’s to say that doesn’t happen in my child timeline verse ?
