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Xandra is not afraid of disarrays.
She tries to ignore the nightmares when they happen. It’s easy enough, most times, especially if there’s no one around. The worst is over as soon as she wakes up, and then she feels kind of stupid about it, and she gets out of bed to find a glass of water and something else to think about.
But every so often it’s bad enough that, apparently, the others can tell. And that’s when one of them shakes her awake and tells her she was tossing and turning, or talking in her sleep, or crying. She hopes it’s not too obvious. It’s embarrassing. With Sprout it’s one thing, but the first time it had been Wolfboy who had hesitantly nudged her awake…she was far from grateful. Looking back, it hadn’t been fair.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. She's got a new version of the same problem now. Maybe it's because it happened once before, during their time chasing down the prophecy; maybe it's just because this time, in the dorm, there's no one else awake to do it first; but recently, Seth has seemingly taken it upon herself to wake Xandra at the slightest sign of disquiet.
And so Xandra would open her eyes, freed from gloomy nightmares of vicious disarrays, and find herself inches away from the safe familiar face of…a disarray. Great.
It’s the eyes she sees first, because, well, they’re hard to miss. Every disarray has eyes like that—sharp, glowing. Wrong. It’s not that she’s afraid, of course. It’s just…startling. They stand out to her before the rest of the picture, shining azure against the dark and making it hard to see much else. One of the first things Xandra remembers learning is that glowing eyes mean danger. Now she’s learning that old habits die hard.
Xandra sees the eyes, and nothing else. She recoils instantly, yelping and scrambling up, frantically pushing herself back and raising one arm in a sloppy guarding block. And then, just as quickly, she falters. She blinks away the haze of darkness, and realizes who it is.
And she feels really, really bad.
Seth doesn’t even seem to react. “Xandra?” she asks. Her voice is soft, almost whispered. “Are you okay?”
“I...” Xandra pauses, her gaze flitting away. She swallows. Her expression returns to stone. “I’m fine. Go back to bed.”
“Okay, it’s just...you sounded upset. I was worried about you.” Seth waits a moment, considering. “Was it a nightmare? Maybe the Dream Lab could help.”
Xandra’s heart, amid its still-rapid beating, sinks. “Just—forget about it, Seth. It’s nothing. Go to sleep. We’ve got class tomorrow, you know.”
Seth nods, but her ears angle down, betraying her lingering concern. “Okay.” She turns, slowly. “Goodnight, Xandra.”
“Yeah,” Xandra answers, still staring down at her blanket. The fabric scrunches tight under her fingers. Slowly, she raises one heavy hand toward her chest, as if feeling her own heartbeat would steady it.
Her hand is still shaking.
She balls it into a fist. It’s fine. This was no different from any other time. She had reacted just the same way to Sprout plenty of times before, flinching or shouting whenever he tried to wake her too fast. To Sprout! No, this had nothing to do with disarrays. She’s supposed to—she is better now.
This had nothing to do with disarrays. Not as long as she ignores the fact that, when this sort of thing happened with anyone else, it didn’t take even half as long for her heartbeat to settle, or for her body to stop feeling so tense.
She’s not afraid. She’s not afraid of disarrays. She’s not afraid of Seth.