I've caught myself numerous times wondering what would happen after the events of Don't Shoot the Messenger. Do you think messenger would be able to keep her anonymity after getting in a relationship with Satrasi? Would she still be able to do her work as a messenger if that was not the case? Did they try start of their relationship in secret in order for messenger to keep going with her job? Or did she get a more prominent job within the organisation instead? Or maybe I'm overthinking it and the two are descreet enough? Would love to hear your thoughts on this! (And have some secret hope you'll write it down as a follow up story one day😆)
@paleoverthinker
So, to answer your last question first, basically no. i sort of have an idea for another story in the DSM canon but it would be relatively short and feature Wicklow and a demon lady pirate (and would mostly be an excuse for smut). Satrasi and our Marlin would be there briefly, but otherwise not be prominent players.
I'm really happy with DSM as a whole as it is and have been trying to work on writing short stories--and this one's still over 30k which is very diff compared to a lot of other writers in this space on tumblr at least lol. I don't have any concrete ideas for where their story would go next and since I have a billion other separate ideas on my backlog, I'm trying not to think about it--although if I ever write that Wicklow story, who knows what'll creep up on me.
Now, that doesn't mean i haven't thought about the answers to your other questions already. Satrasi and our messenger are very interesting because they are both discrete and very... not at the same time. For things like the briefing depicted, where Marlin is officially reporting as a messenger--they are picture of professional, couldn't tell a thing between beyond perhaps that they have worked together for a long time.
The rest of the time though? Extremely obvious, they do not try to hide anything. They are pirates and do not give a fuck who knows. Marlin kept to themselves before all this and so are almost nondescript when in uniform so to speak. Marlin does take off their marlin specific coat and is more likely to have their hair down (Satrasi likes to play with it) when with Satrasi off-duty so to speak. So often people do not recognize them when Marlin is just straight up curled in Satrasi's lap while random pirates discuss idk maps with him.
There are plenty of rumors about the Admiral sleeping with one of his messengers, but that's all most of the world knows. There are so many crazy rumors about Satrasi, that one barely rates. (Did you hear he has an army of sharks that follow his ship around?) The majority of his fleet are extra nice to the messengers because which one is it? Fuck if I know (the other messengers encourage the confusion so they all get good treatment lol) And the crew of the carrier know exactly who it is and knock a lot more now. Marlin loves being a messenger (doesn't want diff role) but does know more secrets because they are just like, around Satrasi a lot more than before.
And while people never really tried to cross them before (except, uk that one time), they really, really don't now.
