Life in Zora's Domain

Chapter 84 - Family Matters

Summary: Family life goes on. Princess Zelda has a small party which Tila and Link attend. Lapha helps Midon with some coding.

It was late afternoon at Hyrule Castle and Princess Zelda was relieving Link of duty for the day and the weekend. They were both standing near a castle entrance where two guards stood on duty.

"Will there be anything else, Princess?" said Link.

"Yes, I wanted to mention two things," said Zelda. "Next week Mother would like me to visit Gerudo Town, so that will be a three day trip for the two of us. And secondly, I am having a small last minute party tomorrow evening, just a few friends. I know it's short notice, but I was hoping you could attend."

"As your guard, Princess?" said Link, somewhat confused.

"No, silly, as my guest, of course!" laughed Zelda. "There are already plenty of guards at the castle. And feel free to bring your friend as you like to call her even though we all know she's your girlfriend, Link."

"Thank you, Princess, that's very kind of you," said Link.

"There will be music and dancing and good food. I'm sure you will both have a good time," said Zelda.

"I'm sure we will. I'll let Tila know right away," said Link. "She was planning to visit anyway. And thank you again, Your Highness."

Zelda left to enter the castle, and while Link made his way back toward his room, he messaged Tila.

LinkJr->Tila: We're invited to a party with Zelda tomorrow. Can you attend?

Tila->LinkJr: Wow! Love to, sweetheart! Will need something new to wear. See you soon.

Link wondered why Tila needed something new to wear, since she always wore such beautiful things already, but he didn't pretend to understand. He put away some of his belongings, and then made his way to the guard's mess hall for dinner.

Meanwhile, back in Zora's Domain, Lapha, Midon, and Link were all home today. Lapha was reading some technical documents in the same room Midon was working on rune development using the equipment given to him by the Sheikah Technology Department. Link was updating his journal next door.

"Zodont!" exclaimed Midon suddenly in an angry tone.

Lapha jumped in surprise, startled by the outburst.

"Crab bites Mido, what is your problem? "said Lapha. "You scared me, and your language is terrible. You're lucky Mom's not home, and Dad doesn't understand Zora."

"Sorry, Laff, but I'm fighting the current on this thing," said Midon. "I've been over it several times, and I still can't understand why this rune I'm developing doesn't always work."

"What is it supposed to do?" said Lapha.

"It creates a small drone, then allows the user to navigate it in the air or underwater and return images of what it sees to the user's Tab," said Midon. "The funny thing is it creates the drone perfectly, which you would think would be the hard part. But then I lose control of the drone sometimes when flying it and it self-destructs into nothingness to avoid harming anyone once it senses signal loss. I have a feeling I'm missing something obvious."

"Can you show me your code?" said Lapha. "Especially the part where you communicate with the drone."

"Here," said Midon passing his coding device to Lapha and indicating the section.

Lapha silently read over the code for several minutes while Midon waited and looked over her shoulder.

"I'm not sure if this is the problem," said Lapha. "But here where you assign the frequency to communicate with the drone you only check for frequency collision at the start. You should probably check periodically and switch your frequency if a competing signal starts to interfere with yours. I see you created dual frequencies at the outset for redundancy, but you should probably also check the backup frequency more frequently than only at drone launch."