Zelda had figured it out, but she was nervous - that Xena would get back from her friend's family's large Christmas party before midnight, that someone would come into her room at the wrong time, that the portkey wouldn't work. She shoved pillows under her comforter to create the rough shape of a person, and pulled the blanket over the top - luckily, it wasn't far off from how Zelda actually slept. And Xena wasn't home yet, and the portkey worked, and she landed on - something. It took Zelda a second - after Alfred kissed her - to realize that the movement under her feet was because they were on a boat, and she grinned. She spun in a little circle in her slippers, taking in the coast around them - the lights of the town were distant. Zelda had never really been at sea before.

"I love it," she said. She leaned up to kiss him again. "I brought your present with me, too." Hanukkah had ended weeks ago, but Zelda had acquired the object beforehand and held onto it for proximity to Christmas.

She pulled the bottle out of the pocket of her robe - (for this, she had had to enchant her pockets to be bigger on the inside, but it was hardly the most ambitious spell she'd ever performed) - and offered it to him. It was a simple ship-in-a-bottle situation, with a sailboat inside - except that there was an enchantment on the inside of the bottle to make the sails move, like it was at sea. A little shy, Zelda held it up. "It's not as good as this, but." She shrugged.

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