Aurum, unlike Feza, often found his caring nature spread across many different subjects, and not just focused solely on one task, like Feza and her party planning. Ever since he had arrived in Tanglewood – and perhaps even before, if anyone ever asked him – Aurum had found himself caring. In fact, occasionally the lion cared too much. Cared too much about his friends, cared too much about his family, cared too much about everyone but himself. He cared so much for so many different specific people that he often found himself giving up parts of himself, plucking away pieces just so that he could offer them to others. He had spent so much time in the past being selfish, and all it had ended up bringing to him was disaster and heartache, so why would he now choose to stop being selfless? He liked it this way. He liked being a caretaker, pouring himself so fully into working until his paws bled just to make sure that others were safe, and happy, and felt like they had a home with him. He and Feza were similar in that they cared about seeing others happy, but they were also so, so, painfully different. Feza threw herself into her schemes and festivities, working herself to exhaustion all to see that end result of a happy smile on someone's face. Meanwhile, Aurum threw himself into the people he loved, and the things that he did to protect them. He worked himself to exhaustion so that his home would know how much he loved them. So that his family – and truthfully, all of Tanglewood was his family, at least in his eyes – would know how much he loved them. Did it hurt sometimes, tearing himself apart bit by bit just to help others who sometimes didn't even care? Yeah, of course it did. But would that ever stop him? No. He didn't think it ever would. Because there would always be people that he loved. People that deserved those torn away pieces of himself.

Also unlike Feza, there were times where Aurum would actually allow himself to rest. These occasions were few and far between, often squeezed between large events that drained him so fully that he needed to sleep and allow himself to recharge, or he would literally collapse from the stress of it all. The lion had seen Feza on that cliff more than a few times, smiling giddily even as she stared down into the abyss of exhaustion and injury, all because she believed she was only useful if she was making others smile. Sometimes Aurum wanted to scream, just because Feza could be so surprisingly and frustratingly stubborn at times. Even when she didn't mean to be. She would laugh nervously and ramble on and on while plastering a plastic smile on her face all because she didn't want to allow herself even a second of shut eye. If Aurum didn't think she would never, ever trust him again if he did it, he probably would've already knocked her out by now, just so that she would actually get some proper goddamn rest. It annoyed him even more, knowing that there were many moments like the predicament she had been in just an hour before. Phases where she wouldn't have anything that she needed to do, and wouldn't have any odd festive little weird ideas in her head, begging to be fulfilled. These would be the moments where he would most expect her to finally fucking relax, and get the sleep that she very obviously needed. However, that was never the case. She always had to find something, in her own agonizingly frustrating way.

Of all the things that the male had ever expected Feza to do in one of these moments – although really he should've never expected anything of Feza, since none of his expectations was ever right – he had never thought that she would turn to caring for bugs as an outlet for her aversion to sleep. It just seemed like such an utterly ridiculous task that it wouldn't have surprised him if it was the setup for a joke. Hey, what happens when you find a Feza searching for a bunch of caterpillars? You know it's just a regular Tuesday! If Aurum was a weaker animal, that knew he wouldn't chomp clean through the bone and muscle of his tail if he bit down to hard, he might've bitten down on the appendage just to keep himself from screaming. Who in their right mind went out and collected a bunch of caterpillars to raise in a little habitat? Although at this mental question, Aurum's response probably would've been that there was no way in hell that Feza was actually in her right mind. He had seen her out of her right mind firsthand quite a bit, in fact. And while he liked to think that he had grown used to her particular brand of antics over the many months now that he had known and lived alongside Feza, there were still certain times where he just had to question what the hell her motivations were. Where he just wanted to find a really tall tree where he could scream, why the fuck are you not asleep?

The week thus far had not been the kindest in the world to Aurum. His brother was back, which was both a good and a bad thing at the same time, and really overall just a stressful thing. In addition to that, he now knew that he needed to move houses if he wanted to live comfortably with all those that he kept around him, and in addition to that? The proxy had to deal with Vathmos and Snarl being at each other's throats, things even escalating to such a point where a physical fight had almost broken out. It had only been a few days, but it felt like eons had passed in those last few days, and Aurum felt like he hadn't slept for a single second of those eons. His body was so tired, with his wings and ears drooping, and his eyelids constantly feeling heavy. His mind spun occasionally, an unpleasant reminder of the fact that he was actually real, and expected to live like a normal fucking person. As a result of all of this, Aurum had been in quite the state when Feza tripped and stumbled to the ground nearby. He had been in front of his house, his large body spread out in the son as sweet voices lulled him towards rest. These voices were cruelly interrupted, however, by Feza's shrill and annoyed huffing. A heavy sigh left the angel, and he heavily considered just ignoring the brightly colored snow leopard, but... well, he was a sucker. A curious sucker, who was also vaguely worried that if Feza didn't rest soon, she was going to have an actual heart attack.

Opening his one blue eye slowly, Aurum shoved himself up to his unsteady paws, eventually just opting to plop his hindquarters down into a sitting position. He eyed Feza curiously as she sat up as well, all huffy and annoyed, although he truthfully wasn't sure with who. After a long yawn that wrenched his jaws open wide enough to clearly see his gleaming rows of white teeth, Aurum finally spoke to Feza, his voice slightly rough and drowsy, "You need to get water for... what? Did you say that you're getting water for caterpillars?" He didn't even bother justifying her initial question with a response. Mainly due to the fact that he was fairly sure it was rhetorical, and also because the answer would just be because you're a fucking klutz.