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Mein Täubchen 1: Milo's POV

A/N: Hello everyone! Here is part 1 the super long bonus chapters from Milo's perspective. I was originally going to write it all in one chapter, but then things kind of spiralled out of control. This chapter itself is already 9000 words, so I decided to split it up into multiple chapters! I (evidently) had a lot of fun writing these bonus chapters - Milo is an idiot but he's Culver's idiot. They're just two birdbrains in love :') Enjoy!

Part I - The Watcher

I watched him, like I always did. He didn't know I was watching - he was distracted, like he often was. I sat there watching him, beneath a shaded tree in his back yard with a book on my lap, as he talked to Lark. Both of them had their wings out, his glistening black and hers shimmering auburn, talking about things that I could never completely understand; the feeling that the wings gave them, how it felt to control their bodies as they glided through the air, the sensation of the wind ruffling their feathers.

His long hair was a mess, wind-whipped and long. He had tried to tie it up, but it spilled out of its bindings - it couldn't restrain itself, much like his exuberant personality. Today was one of his good days, where it was sunny and bright. I wanted all of his days to be good days, but sometimes there would be days where it was dark and stormy, and those days were hard. Sometimes he would get lost in the storm, but I knew that he could brave it. He was the bravest person I knew.

But today was a good day, and I had learnt to not worry about the bad days and just enjoy the good ones for what they were. Today was a day when he smiled that same toothy smile that made my heart catch even after all these years. That smile stretched at his cheeks and reached all the way to his hazel eyes. Those eyes, speckled with a myriad of colours I was still trying to map; specks of brown that turned copper in the sunlight like constellations in an ocean of green. His constellations seemed to shift like his mood, and I seemed to find new ones every time I looked into his eyes.

Maybe I did understand, just a little, about how it must feel to fly in the sky under the constellations. 

He laughed suddenly, his voice carried by the wind. The sound tickled my ears and made my heart itch, and I found myself smiling too. I found that I did that a lot, whenever he was around; he would laugh at things I didn't understand, and I would smile any way. I wasn't the only one, though; now, Lark laughed too, her eyes lighting up as she giggled at his words. That was a power of his, one that wasn't given to him by an aberration of science. He had been given that power long before he ever got his wings.

Yes, he had that power ever since then. It's been over six years now, but that power hasn't changed - it has simply gotten stronger. Or maybe I had just become more powerless against it now. The thought made me smile wryly as I watched the boy, just as I have always been.

I watched him, and I waited for him to turn back and notice.

Part II - The Foreigner

Felix stood next to me nervously, gripping the straps of his backpack with white-knuckled fingers. His new blue and white uniform looked stiffly pressed, Mama having gone overboard with the starching and ironing, and the way his hair was too neat on his crown made him stick out like a sore thumb. I knew I wasn't looking much better, though I made sure my face did not convey any of my nervousness.

I had moved schools before, back in Munich, but this was completely different. This was a new country, full of people that spoke a language that was not my first. It wasn't that I couldn't speak English at all - I had learnt it in school for as long as I could remember, and Felix and I watched lots of American TV shows - but I knew I wouldn't sound like all the other kids here. I found it hard to make the 'th' sound, and I keep mixing up the English 'w' and 'v' sounds.