None of the above, technically! He met her when he was young, around 10 or 11 I’d say.
Both Link and Linkle adored horses ever since they were children, so much so that they would often go off to the local ranch of their village, the Lon Lon Stables, just to see them. The owners of the stable was Talon and his younger brother Ingo, two kindly ranchers who would often allow the village children free guided rides on their horses or let them pet them. In the twins’ case, they were so enamored with horses they came to the ranch nearly every day, and would often ask to help tend to the horses when they did. If they did, they were often under the watchful eye of the brothers or Talon’s teenage daughter, Malon (who the twins adored like a big sister).
Epona came to the ranch after Talon bought her off the distraught hands of another horse merchant: originally wild, she was captured for her unusual markings and healthy build but ultimately sold when it was found out she couldn’t be tamed, and the cycle repeated for each rancher who got a hold of her. The horse wasn’t unfriendly, persay, but she was very disobedient to anyone who attempted to put a saddle on her and more often then not would buck them off the moment they got on her back. To particularly rough handlers she’d bite and kick at.
Talon and Ingo originally did buy Epona to make their own attempt at taming her, but after the first initial failures they opted to simply let her roam their ranch peacefully. Selling her did come up, but Malon had managed to gain the mare’s trust enough to be allowed to pet her, and seeing how much the girl seemed to enjoy the horse they just figured she could stay.
The moment Link met Epona for technically the first time was a profound one: the twins were heading to the ranch particularly early that day, excited to work with the horses and visit the Lon family. Link had only just looked over the fence to get a glimpse of the horses he’s come to know, but the moment his eyes landed on Epona time seemed to crawl to a standstill. He himself stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide and trained solely on the large wild horse grazing peacefully in the fields. When Linkle turned around to see why her brother stopped, Epona had in turn raised her head and took a long, long look at the boy, her ears perked forward.
Linkle watched as the giant of a mare started walking toward their side of the fence, focused only on Link, her advance so intent the girl took a few steps back in surprise. Link himself barely moved, not even when the horse leaned her head over the fence to look straight down into his eyes, a warm blue meeting grey.
It was strange: the child felt a wave of familiarity and deja vu wash over him as he stared up at the horse and, in a move he wasn’t entirely aware of, outstretched his palm toward her. Reaching but stopping before touching, allowing the horse to approach at her own pace.
Epona stared for a moment longer, eyes shining as if thoughtful, before she lowered her great head and, with a quick sniff, pressed her snout firmly into the boy’s palm.
That moment felt as if Link had just reunited with a friend older than time, tears prickling the back of his eyes as he moved to pet the mare. And not a moment after did he feel something fall into place somewhere in his mind, as if a puzzle piece finally finding where it meant to be, ringing out one word:
Epona.
—
By the time the Lons had noticed the twins at the fence, Epona had begun to nicker happily or running in excited sprints before returning to Link to butt her head against him. It was a sight to behold for sure: the usually stand-offish mare seeming like a bright eyed foal under the boy’s attention. When asked how on earth Link managed to approach the horse so fast, Linkle answered for him: Epona approached him; it was almost as if they knew each other.
From that day on Link continued to visit the ranch, and while he still enjoyed tending to all the horses he spent most of his time with Epona. Eventually, I’d like to think the Lon family saw how much Link adored the horse and vice versa, so for his birthday they conspired with Linkle and his parents to simply give her to him.
Link cried like a babu. uwu
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I’m sorry if that seemed a little on the rushed side; I actually had to rewrite a lot of that since my original answer got deleted thanks to me being clumsy, so this is the much shorter version of it. I hope it answers your question regardless! <:
shut up aziraphale’s true form is scary as fuck NOT because it’s not cool but because crowley will be getting milk from the fridge in the middle of the night and he’ll look left and it’s just hundreds of glowing eyes awakening from the depths of the hallway and a disembodied voice is like “my dear boy this is the final time you drink straight from the carton”
