Severa was battle-ready to confront Panne. After what happened between her and Stahl in the forest, this confrontation was inevitable. Criticism be damned! She'll take on the taguel even if it ends in bloodshed.

It took Cynthia half a day to convince her that it wasn't the best route to take. "If you do this, no one will understand your actions. It's also like you're condemning Stahl as a cheater. Think really hard on what you're about to do."

"He technically didn't," Severa answered.

"No one will care about that," Cynthia said. "All that people will care about is that you are a relationship wrecker even if you aren't."

"But it has to be done. This whole farce should stop before it gets more complicated. I already waited for a month hoping that he would end it naturally, but he can be so stupid."

Cynthia hugged her tightly. "Whatever happens, I'll be here for you. Now go, go, go! I know I can't stop you, but at least have the decency not to kill Panne."

The only logical place for Panne to be in was in the training grounds. Severa headed there and saw Panne practicing her thieving skills with Gaius. She cringed at how Panne looked up close. The taguel was everything that she wasn't. Panne was tall and she didn't need to stand on her tippy-toes just to reach Stahl's face. Even if Severa was confident of her good looks, Panne will always turn heads as she was the definition of exotic. Their personalities were also on the opposite ends of the spectrum. Panne was calm and collected, and she was hot headed. There was also the issue of chest size where some of Severa's angst came from.

The taguel's ears perked when she heard Severa approach her. "It's about time," the taguel said as she turned around and smiled smugly at her. Severa gripped the handle of her axe and her mouth became taut at the anticipation of who will strike first.

Gaius looked from one female to the other. He felt the electricity in the air, "um… this is all kinds of awkward. Should I get Frederick or something?"

"No, there is no need for my father to get involved in this. Just leave," Severa said.

"Okay, okay," Gaius said. He left them.

Panne walked towards Severa, her hand still on her sword. "Let's get down to business shall we? Why are you doing this man-spawn? Why are you still pursuing him despite knowing that he is taken?"

Severa pouted. "I love him and I know that he loves me too. He's a very nice guy, sweet and kind, and should I go on telling you why I think he is the most important person in the world to me?"

"Tch! He's nice to everybody," the taguel said as she raised an eyebrow. "What did he do that he has your heart? Did he smile at you and suddenly you're smitten?"

"He always had my heart, far longer than you can imagine. And if you bothered to look closely, he has a smile that was only meant for me."

"You are insane."

"I am not insane. I am telling the truth and I can no longer bear to see my soulmate with somebody else!" Severa gritted her teeth. She will not back down even if she didn't have the right to do this.

"Soulmate?" Panne laughed. "What made you think that? From a generation who challenges fate, you just happened to be the only one who believes in it."

"I believe in it. I know it. I can feel it and he feels it too."

"That's preposterous."

"Panne, you don't know what it feels like when we are together. It's like the world stops and there's only us in it. In a room full of people, he's the only one I see and he only sees me. I don't even have to announce my presence, his eyes immediately search for me and I lock onto him. We get lost in each other's eyes and when it happens, it's just pure bliss." She bit her lip, "And when we are apart, all we have is this longing, this ache, this nagging feeling that we should be together. One month away from him is hell. What more if we're apart forever? Do you feel that when you're with him?"

Panne shook her head and crossed her arms, "all that this looks to me is a spoiled girl who got it into herself that the first man who ever showed her kindness is the one that she will marry. It's a childhood crush, you'll get over it soon."

"I do not have to repeat myself. I do not have a crush on him, I love him. Think about it Panne. When he is with you, who does he talk about?"

"Everybody. He talks about everybody because he wants me to have friends."

"And does that include me?"

"Yes…" Panne said begrudgingly.

"And when he does, what does he say?"

"It is none of your business."

Severa pouted. "It is my business!"

Panne sighed and rolled her eyes, "he talks about how you are like the sky."

She blushed profusely when she heard this. He has told her why he always looked at the sky, 'sometimes it's cloudy, sometimes it's sunny. It has so many faces that I never tire of it no matter how often I watch it.' That happened when they were in Port Ferox. She recalled how he can tell what she's feeling because he was always looking at her face. Tears welled up in her eyes. 'That bastard.' Severa dried her eyes and she felt more determined to fight for him. "Forget about him for a moment. Do you even see yourself growing old with him?"

Panne grimaced.

"Are you prepared to wake up one morning and realize that you are with the wrong man? Do not spend the rest of your life wondering what could've been," Severa said.

"I do not care for that," Panne answered. "What I care about is having someone that I can love."

"Love? Is that the only important thing? Does he make you feel anything else? Does he make you angry? Does he make you sad? Does he make you feel confused? Stressed? Does he make you feel things other than lust?"

"What do you know about lust? You are a child."

"I am not a child! How dare you call me a child! I know what people do in the dark. I have killed to survive. I drank blood to quench my thirst so I can live for another day. I saw my comrades, my friends and my family sacrifice themselves for a better future. I have fought abominations and I am fighting them still. I know darkness intimately. So do not call me a child!"

Panne's defense went down. "I will give you that, Severa. You and I are not so different. I know of loss and pain as you do. And while I mask mine with self-control, you mask yours with bristle. Deep down we are both broken, and we are in love with someone who can make us feel like the world is not such a bad place."

Severa sobbed, "I know that. That is what he makes me feel too but you can also get that from other people. Friends can make you feel that too, not just your lover. I know that you are all alone, but somebody else can make the world better for you. Somebody better, and that person is not Stahl. There is someone else for you, Panne and it's not him."

"Stahl is mine and I am his. And you are desperate."

"No. I am devoted," Severa answered.

Panne gathered Severa in her arms. The girl gasped, she did not expect things to go this way. She expected hair pulling and yelling, not for her rival to embrace her. "You are still too young and there are many things ahead of you. There is more to life than devoting yourself to one man."

"True, but when you find the one who you want to spend the rest of your life with, fight tooth and nail for him," she answered. "You always put him first. And whatever it is that life will bring, I want to face it with him. If you cannot see yourself being devoted to him, then you don't love him Panne. You don't."

"I can't really blame you for falling for him," Panne said. "He does have a charm about him and he is very sweet. But you are also naïve."

"No. I am in love."

"Stahl."

"Panne."

It felt strange for him that she was the first one to talk to him.

"I will only give you my unconditional honesty and I expect the same in return," Panne said.

He nodded, "okay…" Stahl studied her face to see what was going on. Panne masked it with her usual calmness. 'Why are you asking for the truth? Do you think I'm hiding something? What is going on?'

"You like me, but you don't like me enough to really love me."

Stahl couldn't believe his ears. "W-what?"

The world around him was shattered. "That's not true!"

He took Panne's hands in his and gazed at her. "I do have feelings for you," he tried to figure out why she would suddenly drop a fireball on him. He looked into her eyes and he saw a turbulent pain in them.

"You do not love me."

Her words were plain as day for him to see. "Oh no, you're breaking up with me!" His jaw dropped the same time that he dropped Panne's hands. "You're breaking up with me…"

They were supposed to have a nice romantic picnic but things went downhill really fast. "We are not in love," Panne said.

Stahl's heart broke to a million pieces. Panne was blunt and she had hurt him with her bluntness several times before, but this time it's different. This was too much for his heart to take. "How could you say that so calmly? H-how can you say that we are not in love?"

"Think about it. We do not have anything in common other than our love of food and sex." Panne breathed deeply and gave him a sad look. This was the first time that he saw an expression like that on her face. He knew that she did not want to give him pain, but it was necessary for her to do so.

He grasped at straws, "Is the sex bad? Or is it my cooking? I know you don't like my cooking, b-but I can be better! I'll think of many recipes involving carrots. I will try and try until I get what you want."

"No, it's great actually, both the mating and the food. But that is not the point. There is nothing deep in our relationship. I feel nothing that connects me to you, and I know that you do not feel for me as you think you do."

"Was intimacy not deep enough? I gave my heart and everything to you." Every word that she said was a death sentence. "Panne, there must be something else that we have in common." He bowed his head and tried to think of the things that they did. She was right. It was all superficial. "But it could've been something more. It could've grown into something more."

"We are not in love."

Stahl felt this rejection heavily in his heart. "What brought this on? I tried to do everything for you. I tried to be the perfect boyfriend for you. I tried to reach your expectations and I made sacrifices for you. Am I not trying hard enough? You said that I made you happy."

"As much as I appreciate that you did everything that you could just to make me happy, it doesn't change the fact that we really do not love each other. The fact that you tried only means that you just wanted to give us a chance. You had to make an effort to do things for me because there was nothing there in the first place. It's like being in a relationship with me was a job, and you have to give it your all or else you will lose it. What we did was force ourselves into a relationship. We hurried into this without really knowing each other. We thought we were happy, but that happiness was a lie. We are not in love."

She was right. Everything that she said was the plain and simple truth, but it was difficult to accept. "Why do you have to drive the point home?"

"Stahl, I have to or else you will not let this go," Panne said.

But he was not convinced that they had to be separated. "I can fix this. Tell me what you want me to do and I will give you my full effort."

The taguel looked pensive. "Stahl, I think you like to fix broken people. It's bordering on pity and I feel insulted. Did you only go out with me only because you pitied me?"

He remembered his conversation with Maribelle when he helped her out on her studies. 'I've never been very good at working hard for my own benefit. If I'm not helping someone, I just can't seem to get interested.' Was Panne right?

"I need your answer."

"I wanted to do things for you, to make you comfortable around us. I wanted to make your loneliness go away so I wanted to make you happy. I wanted to be the only one to make you completely happy." He dug deeper in his feelings and saw the core of how he felt for her. "I did, in a sense, pity you. In the end, everything that I did for you was so you can have friends. If they saw that you were in a relationship with a human being, then maybe the rest of the Shepherds wouldn't avoid you. But the complete and absolute truth is that I asked you out originally so I could forget Olivia," he said. "I wanted to have a second chance at love, and I thought I wanted it to be with you."

She looked like she was holding back her tears. "That's what I was waiting for .Thank you for your honesty." Panne caressed his face. "I knew about you and Olivia. Thw two of us are friends and we have talked about you on occasion. She gave me her blessing to be with you and Olivia is learning to move on too. Deep down I knew that you only used me so you could forget about her."

"I'm so sorry I lied to you," he said. "I'm so sorry that I used you."

"Stahl, it's not that. Olivia is a complicated part of your past so I understand why you would like to forget her," Panne answered.

"In the time that we were together, I didn't think of Olivia at all. I have moved on from her long ago and she has her own family now." He knew that Olivia was not the half of the reason for the break up. "Panne, there is something else that you're not telling me. We had a good thing going and I want to go deeper. I want to know more about why we're breaking up. Why can't we be in love?"

"You are just too young for me."

"What is twenty years between us? Since when did that stop anybody?"

"For me, twenty years is nothing, for your race it's not really ethical. You are half my age and we differ in so many things. What we had was passion and intimacy but that's the extent of it. Do you see yourself growing old with me?"

He bowed his head. He can't.

"Neither do I," Panne put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry Stahl, but there is somebody out there who truly loves you."

"Panne, don't leave me," he placed his hand on hers in a last ditch attempt to salvage their relationship.

She put his hand away, "if we continue this, we are fooling ourselves. I have given you enough reasons Stahl. I wish that things didn't have to go this way. I wish that we could've been something more. I wish you looked at me the way you looked at her."

"Why? How do I look at Severa?"

"I didn't even mention her name!" she answered. Her eyes turned into slits and she looked like she was ready to literally eat his heart.

Stahl was taken aback. 'Severa? What does she have to do with this?' he saw the jealousy in Panne's eyes. "Is that the real reason? Are you breaking up with me because of Severa? You're jealous of Severa but you do not care about my other female friends? I spend more time with Cordelia, Cherche, Lissa and Maribelle than with her and you're not jealous of them? You could've just told me to stop hanging out with her and I would've done that for you."

"No Stahl. Not for her. There is nothing that anybody can say that will make you stop being with her, nor she with you. And given the chance, you will always choose her over me."

It hit him why.

Everything that happened to him up to this point was an avalanche of awareness. He understood the reason for Severa's anger towards him and it all started when he and Panne got together. Panne's jealousy and eventual break up was because Severa had feelings for him. "Oh… Oh no…" the world stopped spinning for a moment when he realized that.

He was a fool. He unknowingly played with Severa's heart and he has hurt her so deeply. He saw Severa's pain but he didn't realize that he caused it. How didn't he realize it sooner? He felt a connection between them, but he was unsure of his feelings for her then. Why didn't he look further into it? Why did he accept the answer that they were just very good friends?

Because her answer hurt him, and to protect himself from further pain, he decided to move on immediately. 'I should've known better. It was just Severa being Severa…' he felt wrong that he wasn't careful enough with Severa and now her heart ached just as much as his.

Panne wiped the single tear that dropped down his cheek.

"Panne, I… I love her."

"I know. I hear how your heart beats whenever she passes by and I see how you glance at her. I hear how hers beat whenever you are near, how she steals glances at you and then change her expression to a sneer when you catch her. That girl loves you deeply and you feel the same for her. If you are going to be completely honest with yourself, you felt that a long time ago and I think that you have always known. But Stahl, how you fall for damaged people is beyond me."

She had a point. All of the girls he has fallen in love with had issues. Olivia had her crippling social anxiety, Panne had survivor's guilt, Severa had to deal with survivor's guilt and her post traumatic stress disorder. "I'm sorry if I have given you the impression that I only like broken girls."

Panne chuckled as she shook her head, "it's your heart, Stahl. You love caring for people. You are compassionate to a fault. And I'm not broken, at least not anymore. My warren is gone, but they live on inside of me. Though what happened to them still hurts me from time to time, I have learned how to heal. My loneliness lessened thanks to people like you who showed me that the world isn't such a cruel place. I thought I can make a new life with you, but it wasn't meant to be. Severa is still broken, not just because of her past but because of what happened between you and me. Her heart needs to heal and the only one who can do it is you. And so it ends," Panne said.

Realizing that he couldn't be with Panne anymore, he gave her one last kiss on the cheek. He smiled sadly, "the time that we spent together was fun. I wanted to thank you for letting me forget about my previous pain and you made me feel wanted. I really did have feelings for you, and I wish you the best."

"At a certain point, I did too. We had fun, but beyond it we had nothing. For someone who can understand what others feel, it's funny that you needed someone to point out to you what you can't see for yourself."

"Thanks for letting me realize what I really feel. I'm really sorry, but she is the one for me and I know for a fact that there is someone out there for you too," he said.

"Stahl, love hurts and love redeems. Love again," she said as she hugged him and patted his back.

"Panne, you are smart as you are beautiful. Any guy would be lucky to have you. I think you may have already met him, it's just not me. You too Panne, love again."