Tonauac from starbound!

Absolutely obsessed with this cutie patootie.

Starbound was a really fun game for me, but the lack of postgame content made me feel kinda… empty… idk lol.

((I’m really excited--the words for this one just flowed right out. Tonauac gets a bigger role, too! Here’s what happens right before Nyota fights the Avatar of Kluex))

Nyota caught a glimpse of bright gold right before she went under, but she knew better than to stare at the mounds of treasure beneath the water. She’d seen purple in the middle of the gold. Human-shaped. So, Tonauac’s mystery guests hadn’t escaped after all.

‘Who are you?’ the cultist shouted as Nyota climbed out of the water. He took a step back. ‘You! Nox warned us about you! Are you here to stop us? It doesn’t matter anyway!’

Nyota didn’t waste time talking. She drew her sword, the solarium humming to life. The sight of it only seemed to infuriate the cultist further.

‘You dare… Get your filthy paws off our leader’s sword, ape!’

Hadley’s arrival distracted him, partially because she answered him with a blast from her shotgun. ‘You’re the filthy one, Occasus!’ she snapped. ‘Go back to the hole you crawled out of!’

‘Sympathizer!’ the cultist’s companion hissed. She didn’t get much further as Nyota’s sword bit into her. Both cultists burst into light, vanishing like the ones in the Library had.

Hadley let out a sigh of relief. ‘Thanks for that, Captain. I hadn’t noticed the other one.’

‘That was reckless,’ Nyota said, collecting the stimpaks they dropped. Red and blue. Red would be useful in case of injury, at least. The blue ones were more novelties than anything as far as she was concerned. They offered an increase to muscle output for a short time, but in legs only due to some odd error in the formula. Good for leaping tall buildings, terrible for practical exploration.

‘Sorry… I just can’t stand them. They give humans a bad name. I’ll be more careful next time,’ Hadley promised. She took the blue stimpacks and stowed them away, then accepted a red one as Nyota offered it.

‘I’m not scolding,’ Nyota told her. She put a hand on Hadley’s shoulder. ‘Your recklessness bought me time. But it could put your life in danger if I’m not here to help you. We’ll call that the first lesson, shall we? Knowledge is your best weapon. Learn all you can before leaping in.’

‘Yes, ma’am!’ Hadley produced an enthusiastic but sloppy salute.

Nyota laughed softly, shaking her head, and gently corrected her crewmate’s form. ‘There you go. Reload while we have time,’ she commanded. ‘Where there is one Occasus, there may be more. I don’t want to get caught unprepared.’

‘Right, right.’ Hadley took the moment to look around. ‘Get a load of this place though, Captain. The whole place is covered in gold. But they weren’t after that, were they? It’s not even scratched at.’

Nyota followed her gaze, raising the sword higher so she could use the solarium’s warm glow to see. ‘No, they were not,’ she replied slowly. ‘But I see a door.’

She heard the door too, or rather, the muffled voice behind it. Nyota hurried over, Hadley close behind, and the two of them managed to wrench the stone panel aside.

‘Phew, thank Kluex.’ Tonauac shook dust out of his feathers and stepped into the glittering chamber. ‘I heard talking outside and knew you must be close, but the door was quite stuck! I was afraid I would have to find another way around.’

‘It’s good to see you again.’ Nyota helped him clean off; his plumage was soft, and even denser than her fur. ‘Quite the turn of fate that you managed to find us in this maze of a Temple.’

Tonauac looked around and shook his head. ‘Oh, it was nothing short of a miracle. I know where we are. This is the Great Vault. I was brought here for my initiation, when I was a little chick.’ He indicated his childhood height, so tiny compared to his current bulk that Nyota could hardly believe it. ‘We are near the most sacred heart of the Great Sovereign Temple.’

Some of his reverence must have crept into Nyota as he spoke, because she could feel the weight of ages then. Not the stifling dust of years long passed, but a silence, a stillness, like eternity holding its breath. And a raw thrum of power in that endless moment. But then it was gone. No, not gone. Close. It echoed and tickled at her—it felt almost like the moment in the Hunting Grounds when she touched the Bone, in the Library when she held the Mirror.

‘Are you quite alright?’ Tonauac’s feathery hand warmed her shoulder and snapped her back into focus. ‘Oh. You feel it too, don’t you?’

‘Where is the heart of the Temple, Tonauac?’ Nyota breathed.

He did not hesitate. ‘This way. I can see it now, you were brought here. You should see it.’

Nyota felt Hadley’s bewildered stare on her and gave her a small nod; she hoped it was reassuring. This wasn’t something words could explain. Then she followed Tonauac through the room, past hundreds of gold-leafed carvings that had been etched into the walls by millennia of Avian priests. Tonauac gave the names of the priests as they passed, when he could remember. Much of the knowledge had been long since lost. Nyota remembered the journals they had found, and wondered if the hands that had written them had touched these walls, too.

Tonauac stopped in front of a heavy stone door. It was set with a crimson gem, like the sentry statues had been. The gem warmed and glowed at his touch. ‘Through here,’ he said, looking back at Nyota. ‘The heart is guarded, of course. But you should go in.’

‘Thank you.’ Nyota touched his hand. ‘Stay here, please. I do not want to put you in danger.’

He chuckled, a wonderful cooing sound like a massive pigeon. ‘Kluex will favour you. We will meet again soon.’

Tonauac from Starbound has never read homestuck!