(For the "Pinch Point" AU prompt on Tumblr- if one decision in your character's life had been different, how would they have turned out?)

the ambassador

The reporter settles into the chair on the far side of her mirror-polished desk and pulls out a small recorder. "May I?"

"Feel free." She sits up in her own chair, ankles crossed. Thank the Force it's only audio. On the far side of fifty now with three new grey hairs in the last week alone, she's grown tired of seeing herself on holo.

"We'll begin, then. Thank you again for taking the time to meet with me, Madam Ambassador. If you'd please state your name and title for the record?"

She nods. At least this one's got manners and his vetting came through with no red flags; still, she adjusts the blaster holstered beneath her desk, just in case. "Nyriala Barra, Ambassador of the Sith Empire to Alderaan and Deputy Minister of Imperial Logistics."

"Unusual, isn't it? For a deputy minister to be posted outside the home worlds?"

"A little, perhaps. But after the Zakuul war-" she doubts he even remembers the war; he's only a pup, probably no more than half her age- "we realized the folly of consolidating leadership in too central a location. Between the sacking of Korriban and the fall of Dromund Kaas we lost two-thirds of the Corps in a six-month span. And the weather's much more pleasant here, in any case."

"Of course. Now, to start our agreed-upon questions: what drew you to a career in the Diplomatic Corps in the first place?"

She takes a sip of water, collecting her thoughts. Better the polite answer- there's no use in speaking ill of the dead, after all. "I was assigned to the Imperial Academy for schooling when I was eleven. In those days, the Academy trained both diplomatic and Intelligence cadets, though the curriculum was the same until sixth form."

"Did you get to choose," he says, "which you wanted?"

She shakes her head. "I was short-listed for Intelligence, actually. But one's parents had to consent to the allocation, and mine refused. The risk was too great, they said."

(She fought them for weeks about it, calling home again and again in tears, screaming and crying and begging them- it was such an honor, why couldn't they see it-

but they said no. And that was that.)

"You'd lost your brothers in the war with the Republic, right?"

"Clever boy," she smiles. "You've done your research. Yes- I was the youngest in my family by nearly a decade, and three out of four of my siblings died in battle before I was ten. I suppose they couldn't fathom losing another child. And so-" lacing her fingers together, she rests her hands on the desktop- "here we are. Though with the way the war went, I must say they were right."

The reporter nods, adjusting the position of the recorder. "But you still work with Sith Intelligence fairly often, don't you?"

"I'll have to decline to answer that one. You understand."

(Far more often than she'd thought, especially during the flareup just before the Zakuulans came. She remembers one party in particular, dancing with a man she's ninety-nine percent certain was an SIS agent. He was a better dancer than she'd have given the Republic credit for, even if his Kaasi accent was awful, and they spent half the night talking about vintages of whiskey until the security alarm sounded and in a blink he was gone.

A damn shame, that.)

"Of course, Madam Ambassador. And you've no children of your own?"

"No," she says. "I'm afraid I never quite found the time."