Of all the thing I should probably be doing at one A.M., sitting in the kitchen eating peanut butter out of a jar is probably not on the list.
You need context? All right, I'll give you context.
I'm Starr Ender, a dragon in line for the Enderian throne. My mom, Midnight, is the Enderian queen. I guess I'm a princess. (I never really liked that label- never really seemed to fit me, if you know what I mean.) Being on top isn't as nice as you'd think.
Look, being an heir to the crown is hard, okay? Harder than you'd expect. It's not all 'oh-no-I-have-to-much-money-to-spend'- in fact, it's often close to the opposite. We have to regulate money a lot, peer over the finance people's shoulders as they work, that sort of thing. (Admittedly, we do have people to handle finance, but after the last one was caught filching money off us, we decided not to rely blindly on them any more.) And knowing that your mom has to fight others to the death often isn't exactly easy.
Let me explain further, in a hopefully non-confusing fashion. I'm an Enderian (which I already mentioned, whoops), a sort of dragon that can use magic and stuff like that. Teleporting? Yeah, that's real- and surprisingly easy, at that. It's the easiest thing to do, in fact. Next in line is telekinesis. After that is mind reading, or something similar. I don't really know. We don't have a magic school or even magic classes or anything. Only Enderians can do that all pretty easily. And only Enderians have this awful, absolutely stupid tradition that says that their Queens have to battle it out to the death to decide the next Queen. That's the least fun thing about being an heir.
And also we also have to eat sugar- and lots. It gets sort of nasty if we don't. In short, our reserve of magic energy relies on it. And I have sort of a sweet tooth.
But it still definitely wasn't my fault that all the pie had sort of gone missing. Okay, maybe it sort of was. My siblings (all five of them) and I polished off all of them. (Hey, don't look at me like that! Everyone else had plenty of sugar left. I might have a sweet tooth, but it's not large enough to doom a whole species to a gruesome death.)
This all happened about a week ago, and, in the meantime, I had gotten very hungry.
Getting into the kitchens had been harder than expected- the doors were locked, so I had to teleport in. Nothing too difficult, once you know the trick, but still not easy, especially in the night.
Once I found myself inside, it took even longer to find something sugary. This level of the kitchens expanded back long enough for thousands of dragons to fit comfortably in. This kitchen has rows and rows of cabinets high above my head, stuffed full of shelves with everything from sweets and spices crammed in. Each was nicely labed, and lay above a large countertop, many of them full of cooking supplies; lots of knives, blenders, and cutting boards lay out in the open. None of them interested me. Large windows lay to the end of the long kitchen hall. In daytime, the curtains would be pulled aside, allowing blue and white sunshine from the binary suns to pour through; however, in the nighttime, the curtains were drawn and not even a single ray of starlight could creep through.
I searched long and hard, opening and closing drawers and cabinets whenever they interested me. All of them were locked. Occasionally, I would stride into a mouse trap, or my tail would brush into one. I'm pretty sure some of my yelps could be heard throughout the castle. It took a long time to get them off, and, afterwards, my scales were all dented and bent and weird-looking. Oh well. I only hoped it would be worth it.
It wasn't.
Eventually, I stumbled into a slightly ajar cabinet labeled "CONDIMENTS." I had seen thousands of similar cabinets, all locked. I hoped that this one would have something sugary in it.
I opened it, and found a single jar of peanut butter.
"What?" I exclaimed out loud. A single jar of peanut butter? I turned it on its side. A single jar of unopened, nearly expired peanut butter too. Oh well. It would have to do.
I jumped up onto the counter, unscrewed the top, and pulled a spoon from a drawer. I scooped out some, popping it in my mouth. Not bad. Not nearly as sugary as I'd like, but it would have to do.
The empty room sounded deafeningly silent. I could hear the wind blowing outside, and the distant snoring of distant dragons on distant floors. The hollowness of it all pressed in on me, threatening to drown me.
"Here's to being incredibly tired!" I raised the spoon. The darkness glared mockingly down at me. I gulped down the spoonful.
"Here's to my mom possibly dying tomorrow!" The emptiness felt so lonely. I grabbed another spoon from the drawer and clinked the spoons together before taking another bite.
"Here's to this whole situation being ridiculous!" Clink. I officially hated the kitchens. Or, at least, this level.
"Here's to finding your best friend eating a jar of peanut butter in the kitchens at some ungodly time in the morning?"
A familiar figure came into shape in the shadows.
Brilliant blue eyes glared at me accusingly. Slowly, my adopted sister, one among four other siblings, stepped forwards.
"What? Ice?" I tried, unsuccessfully, to hide the half-eaten jar of peanut butter behind my back. "I did nothing! Nothing at all!"
  Ice narrowed her eyes. "So explain the jar and the peanut butter on your mouth."
"Well-" I stammered. "I guess, um- nothing much- I just got sort of hungry, and there was nothing else-"
"Nothing else?" Ice looked incredulous. "We literally have kitchens that could feed thousands of dragons every day- which, must I remind you, they do."
"I... well, honestly, I wanted sugar. And everything else was locked." It sounded lame, even to my own ears.
"Well, maybe you should've thought of that before eating all the pies a week or so back." Ice shook her head, clearly annoyed.
"Must I remind you that you polished off all the fruit ones yourself? And that everyone else ate some too?"
"On your request." Ice hopped up on the counter closest to me, grabbed the jar, and screwed on the lid. She shoved it effortlessly, with a grace I've always envied, into the cabinet behind her. (I don't know how she does it. She manages to be graceful and effortless putting jars of peanut butter away. I manage to trip over my feet and get mouse traps stuck on my tail.)
"They... well, mostly Storm asked, and I said sure! How in the name of the stars is that 'on my request'?"
Ice only sighed at this. "If you're stressed out about the tournament-"
"It's months away." It wasn't, not really. It always felt closer. Trust Ice to bring up the touchy subjects.
"The others are having nightmares." Ice looked vaguely uncomfortable, and glanced towards her feet before gaining the courage to continue. "Fern's tossing and turning and mumbling under her breath. Cloud can't go to sleep until late, and you know how he is with getting to sleep early. Eagle is crying out in his sleep. He's given up trying to stop himself from... saying things. Even Storm is scared- he keeps looking at all them, and murmuring 'I can't lose them, I can't lose them...'" She shook her head. "I stay up later than them all- I see it. I can't believe you don't."
I knew all of this, of course. (What?! I did!) I stayed up even later than Ice, and I could hear her tossing and turning and whispering into the night. But I tried not to worry. It wasn't always that easy, but I could do it. They needed me to.
Sneaking out to eat peanut butter at one am probably didn't count as being not worried, though. Ah, well. I wouldn't mention it, and Ice probably wouldn't either. She knew better than to worry them. If she did, she would play it off as a joke, or would make them assume it was hunger. At least, I hoped she would. 
"I know, Ice, you dingus," I said. (She looked faintly shocked, and suppressed a smile.) "I don't want to worry them, you know. I want them to be happy as much as you do, Ice, maybe even more. ("That's doubtful," Ice murmured in response.) If I worried, they worry."
Ice hit me in a fashion I'm sure she thought was gentle, giving me another dented scale. "You're worrying me, you idiot."
"Yeah, well, you worry about everything, so..."
Ice scoffed at me. "That was awfully gutsy for you to say, when you're in a position where I could so easily fight you."
"As if you'd try!"
She cracked a grin. "All right, then, maybe we could get maybe an hour of sleep tonight. Or you could, since I can't sleep with my constant worrying..."
I laughed, and Ice's smile turned more genuine.
"Come on," she said. "Let's head upstairs."
And so we did.
And I managed to get a solid six hours of sleep in, which, for a school night, was a record. I took that as nothing short of a good omen. 
Too bad it didn't last for long.