When Crowley had first arrived in Tanglewood, Aurum had treated him as he did every other new joiner to the group. He had been warm, hospitable, and interested in what the new addition to their little family would be like. He always had a habit of getting attached to people pretty quickly, and probably always would, – it was just in his nature – but Crowley seemed like an almost special case. The demonic feline had quickly spotted himself into daily life among the Tanglers, often showing up with snarking comments or trying to hide away some activity he was doing with his plants, even if it never truly worked out hidden. Aurum had figured out fairly fast that he enjoyed Crowley's company, and had considered the other a friend without really giving it much thought, expressing appreciation whenever Crowley helped out, and even doling out physical affection, which had seemed totally foreign to the smaller feline. If anybody had asked whether Aurum's feelings had spanned any farther than just simple friendship and interest, he probably just would've changed the subject, flashing a grin and laughing it off. The guardsman had a... complicated history with getting too close to others, especially when it came to matters of the heart, so the chance of being interested in Crowley as more than just a friend? It was both a mite exciting and a whole shitload terrifying, so Aurum preferred to just avoid the subject altogether. Thankfully for him, it seemed as though Crowley was quite keen on burying his own feelings deep down inside as well, so it wasn't as if the demon in question would give Aurum any trouble.

However, recently, something new had transpired between the two of them. Crowley had found out that Aurum was an angel, and vice versa, and it was like something had exploded in Aurum's chest, as if he was finally free from something. Perhaps it was just the prospect of finally speaking with someone who might've known what he had been through, or had experiences that were similar, but for some reason Aurum had just been so keenly curious and faintly joyous when he had found out Crowley was a demon. Which was a pretty funny reaction in retrospect, considering he was supposed to hate demons. Still, it wasn't as if he had been doing too well with the whole "doing what heaven had intended" thing thus far, and it seemed Crowley had the same issue with hell, so Aurum felt little remorse as he went searching for the other male, wanting to speak with him some more about their new discoveries. When he eventually found Crowley, he smiled and flapped over, landing with a soft thud before rumbling, "Hey Crowley. You got a minute to talk, or are you busy?" Aurum was eager to speak with him, but that didn't mean he couldn't understand if Crowley had something else going on.

While Aurum, over his several months of being within the group, had amassed many friends both within and outside of Tanglewood, it seemed as if Crowley was a lot different from many of his other friends. At first he hadn't been able to put his paw on exactly why that was, but now that he knew that Crowley was a demon, he was pretty sure he could. For the longest time after finding out about his origins, Aurum had assumed that he would be cut off from all other celestial life. After all, he had turned his back on heaven, and had been heavily warned away from hell, so why was he to believe he would meet any other angels or demons in his lifetime? But then, Crowley had showed up, and it was almost like the universe had simply said, "you're both different from the others and just a bit hopeless – here, meet." Aurum wasn't truly sure what to make of it, but he couldn't say that he was unhappy. He enjoyed Crowley's company, and it was nice to have someone he could plausibly talk to about matters involving heaven or hell. After all, most of the other tanglers either wouldn't even know where to start upon knowing both were real, or just assumed he was making up entirely. The closest he had gotten before was Delilah and Lilith, but Lilith hated angels, and that had made it a bit hard to discuss anything with her, let alone his very nature. It made him wonder if she had experienced similar negative experiences with where she came from, or if she had just been so thoroughly brainwashed she couldn't think for a moment that there could be an ounce of good in an angel.

A soft chuckle left Aurum as he heard Crowley's sleepy, sun-addled words of greeting, and he couldn't help the small smile that graced itself upon his muzzle, faintly amused by the way that Crowley presented himself. The demon acted like he hated socializing and being nice and all that other stuff that was unbecoming of him, but Aurum was fairly sure that wasn't true. At first he hadn't been able to place why the hell Crowley would try to hide his helpful nature in the first place, but now that he knew what Crowley was and what he was pressured to be like, it made more sense. Padding a bit closer, the guardsman settled into a laying down position beside Crowley, leaving a bit of distance between them as he let the sun bathe down over his back as well. He might not have been cold blooded, but that didn't mean that it didnt feel heavenly on his golden fur and wings, "Don't say that too loud. Before long you'll be at the point where Feza and I are, and you'll be a guardsman with responsibilities beyond just lazing around." A soft chuckle left him before he continued, shaking his head a bit, "I guess I just wanted to talk to you some more about heaven and hell, angels and demons, all of that... I haven't really had anybody around in the past that I could talk about such things with, not to mention the fact that even if I had, I didn't think they'd have the same... let's just say unique opinion about how things work up above and down below. Well... I don't actually really know how things work down there, but I certainly know that heaven isn't all that it's cracked up to be." A soft frustrated sigh left him as he remembered the glaring pristine white of what he could remember, and the constant suffering in the "pursuit of being a good archangel." He wanted to snarl right now over being such a pushover back then, but what could he have done? That was just his way of life at the time – he hadn't known that there was anything else.

If Crowley told Aurum that he didn't really know much about Heaven, Aurum probably wouldn't have been that surprised. Not only because Crowley had somewhat mentioned that before, but also because he couldn't imagine that Heaven would want demons out there just blabbering on about their practices. Truthfully, Aurum probably would've just expected that Crowley got his memory wiped the moment that he was shoved past the pearly gates without a second thought, just because that was what had been done to the archangel when he had been selected to be Poet's guardian angel. Perhaps that was why it had been so legitimately surprised to the angel of sorrow to hear that Crowley hadn't known that Heaven could wipe memories. The lion had always just figured that it was common practice, but the realization that it very much wasn't? Just added on another layer of uncomfortableness to the scenario that made Aurum silently despise the place that he had come from more and more. Just the thought of it made his stomach turn, but thankfully Crowley distracted him from his rapidly degrading thoughts by mentioning that he had never even thought about being promoted. A soft chuckle left the lion as he mumbled, letting his head rest against the ground, "I never really thought about it when I first arrived either, but now here I am as a guardsman. Still feels kinda surreal, honestly. Especially considering I was a bit of an asshole when I first joined." It honestly would probably be a surprise to Crowley or anybody else who had joined after Aurum's time that he had once been a bit of a dick to his fellow Tanglers, considering how much he had changed over the last few months. He had gone from overbearing and overprotective big brother who hated interacting with others to practically a big teddy bear, considering everyone his family and protecting them fiercely. The angel considered it to be a positive change, honestly. Tanglewood seemed to have a certain effect on people, one that Aurum thought he could already see in Crowley after only a few weeks.

When they moved onto the subject of heaven and hell, that familiar sick feeling returned, but this time Aurum pushed it away, reminding himself that he had been the one to bring it up in the first place. A soft chuckle left the guardsman as Crowley cracked a little joke, before he went on to talk about what hell was like. Listening closely, Aurum eventually rumbled with a sigh and a shake of his head, his wings absentmindedly twitching, "Cant say that description of hell surprises me much, although I will say it surprises me how similar it sounds to heaven, minus the hellhounds. I was never one of the Angel's that went around all day pushing paper, but I interacted with a lot of them when I had anybody to interact with, and they always seemed miserable. Stressed and uptight, like the moment they let themselves relax they were going to plummet down through the clouds." The lion wrinkled his nose a bit at the memory, a soft snort leaving him before continued, "Hellhounds, though... I've got some experience with those. Actually even have a hellhound form, if you can believe it." He hadn't utilized his undead looking hellhound form in a while now, just because the body's supreme control over fire handt been needed, but it was still certainly in his shapeshifting repertoire. The angel gave Crowley a moment to process that information before he answered the demon's next question, his one good eye darting up to stare at the clouds, a faint frown appearing on his muzzle, "Honestly I'm not sure what exactly I had in mind... I guess... what was it like, falling? Being free on the planet? I never ended up here until I ended up a guardian angel, and before then... I'm not sure how to describe it. I was locked away, kept in my own little room. It was like I was in a glass box. I could see everything going on around me, but I could never quite reach out and interact with any of it. It was like my own little person hell, up in heaven." He sigjed a bit at the irony of his own statement, internally cursing himself for being so depressing. After all, he and Crowley were connecting more, he should've been happy.

Truthfully, Aurum knew quite clearly why he had once been such a dick to others, and it had been entirely because of Judith and Aethelred. His two parents when he had been born as a lion had been nothing but cruel and condescending to him, constantly favoring Poetking and treating him as if he were nothing. These days he questioned if perhaps they had known what he really was at his birth, and had thus treated him differently, but a much larger part of him just said that his parents had been assholes, and left it at that. Nonetheless, being raised in such a way had made Aurum bitter and jaded, first showing up to Tanglewood with a raging roar searching for where his brother had run off to. That felt so far back now that the memories were fuzzy and faintly warped, and a soft chuckle left the guardsman when he saw the moment of absolute surprise flick over Crowley's face. He rumbled as he nodded, a small smile of amusement gracing his muzzle, "It was... at the time I didn't remember my angelhood, nor did I have a very pleasant existence as a lion up to that point, so I ended up lashing out a lot. Gradually that changed though, when I realized there were actually those out there that had the capacity for good." He was fairly sure that Crowley had a similar experience at some point, considering the other had chosen to wander around on the planet for so long, and probably hadn't chosen to do so just so he could fuck off and be a hermit for hundreds of years. Of course, he could be wrong, but he somehow doubted it, considering Crowley wasn't totally socially inept – not totally, at least.

Aurum blinked when Crowley mentioned that someone else had described heaven as empty, curiosity perking up within him. Still, it seemed rude to just go probing about any of Crowley's possible other friends, so he shrugged, mumbling, "Some areas were crowded, or so I've heard. As I mentioned, I never got to see much more than my room, being confined and all. I'm sure that there are plenty of places where heaven is empty as far as you can see, where the bigwigs want their space. That's probably where Aziraphale was referring to." He could only assume Aziraphale was another angel, considering it was either that or a soul who ended up in heaven, which seemed unlikely. It was after this when Crowley mentioned remembering Aurum's hellhound form, a soft chuckle leaving the lion at the realization, "Ah... I had almost forgotten that I was in that form when you first joined. I'm sorry to have made such a bad first impression, but I couldn't do much about it at the time. My shapeshifting wasn't allowing me to go back, so I was trapped in a rather unpleasant undead form for a while. I tried to come off as friendly as possible, but I could see why it would be concerning." After all, if Crowley had already been somewhat on the run from hell at the time, he probably would've immediately assumed Aurum was some sort of agent of hell there to drag him the fuck back.

Aurum noticed a few second after he asked it that his questions could have been considered rude, realizing that falling probably wasn't a pleasant experience, but before he could open his mouth to rescind it, Crowley was already talking. When the other mentioned the conditions of heaven, Aurum's ears flattened to his head, a sigh leaving him, "Yes, well... it isn't quite as great as the stories describe. Or at least, not if you "work" there." It was after this that Crowley continued, explaining falling in the best way that he could. Aurum listened intently, blinking and rumbling softly, "I suppose I should've expected it would be like that, considering what a threat falling is considered up there... I never had much time to worry about it, what with what my purpose was and all. Wasn't much time for doing anything that could get me thrown out, or to start asking questions..." There was a faint tone of bitterness to his words, before he shook his head, continuing, "Well... at least you're free now, right? I mean, you're here, in Tanglewood, so you must have some kind of reprieve. Either that, or nobody realizes you're here yet." He somehow doubted the second option, but there was always the chance that hell wasn't as hypervigilant as Aurum knew it to be, so perhaps it was true.

Honestly, it wouldn't have surprised Aurum to learn that the other thought that they were quite alike, although somewhat different. After all, they had both come from incredibly flawed systems that claimed to work for the greater good – or greater evil – for those within them, but had really had layers upon layers of issues. It was hard not to have similar experiences and emotions as a result, even if Aurum hadn't really remembered his role as an angel when he had first arrived in Tanglewood. Even without his full past intact, the guardsman had felt angry and bitter at the world, like it as a whole had betrayed him by giving him the cards he had been dealt... he was honestly so glad to get out of such a mindset, or he was sure he would've destroyed himself, focusing more on the bad than the good. The angel found himself nodding as Crowley spoke briefly again about Aziraphale, his curiosity rearing its head again before he swiftly pushed it down. Aurum was voluntarily choosing to talk about his friends and emotions and experiences, but that didn't mean he would force Crowley to as well. That would've just been ridiculous and demanding, not to mention the fact that Aurum didn't want to destroy the bond that they seemed to be forming as of late. For the most part Aurum stayed silent, just listening, until Crowley asked about his hellhound form, and his experiences being stuck within it. Snorting, the lion shook his head before rumbling softly, "As far as I can tell...? Stuff like that doesn't happen too often. It was the first time I had ever really shapeshifted since first coming down, though, and it hadn't exactly been voluntary, so there were a few unique circumstances that caused me to be stuck." Honestly he couldn't even begin to think about explaining how he had ended up caught in his hellhound form. "Oh, a necromancer forced me into the form to make me a general in his undead army?" Yeah, sure, that didn't sound crazy, even in a conversation between a demon and an angel.

Aurum's expression soured slightly when Crowley mentioned heaven's favorite method of keeping people in line, but it wasn't because of the demon himself, just because of the truth behind his statement. A sigh left the male, and he shook his head for a brief moment, his gaze darkening at the thought of the bright and incredibly overwhelming place that heaven was, and how he had once called it come. Thankfully, Crowley lightened the mood shortly afterward, nodding a little and confirming his freedom – even if it was a lie, unbeknownst to the guardsman. Aurum found himself skiling at Crowley when he heard this, and he was about to congratulate the demon on finally having found his own freedom away from hell, when the other then followed it up with a question about the both of them. Aurum wasn't sure if it was rhetorical or not, but it still caused his expression to twist slightly, half in apprehension and half in thoughtfulness, since truly he didn't know if heaven was after him or not. Eventually he decided to just be truthful, mumbling with a heavy shrug of his shoulders, "I... supposed so. Really, I don't know if heaven is after me or not. They sent me down to act as a guardian angel, but I haven't been in contact with my charge now for months. I keep wondering if someday somebody is just going to notice that I haven't come back yet and try checking up on me... I hope they don't, for their sake. I have no desire to go back. Not after coming here..." The "charge" in question was, of course, Poetking, but Aurum hadn't seen his brother in months now, and for all the angel knew, Poet was already dead, and his mission had already been failed. He wasn't sure if he would be relieved or saddened to find out it had. Sure, perhaps on some level he missed Poetking, since he had, for the longest time, thought of the male as his brother, but... the other lion had betrayed him. He didn't deserve an angel anymore. Certainly not as much as Tanglewood did.