A lone figure hurries down a deserted country path.
Her cloak clings tightly to her, twigs and leaves clinging to her back.
Nature makes the best camouflage. It's helped her escape the gendarmes more than once.
Marianne: Two years passed, and it yet stands as it once did ... Thank you, God.
Days and nights of sleepless travel have brought Marianne back to her hometown in record time.
She stops at the gate, hesitant.
Marianne: Dust on the handle and the steps ... None have passed in or out for quite some time.
Marianne: What happened here ...?
Ladislas: I moved them out.
Marianne: Hah!
Marianne spins and raises her gun, aiming squarely at the figure's chest.
Ladislas: We have been apart too long, cousin—grown too distant—for my voice doth no longer echo true in thy ear.
Marianne: Ladislas? Why are you here? You were stationed at the front, were you not ...?
Ladislas: Our kin are safe. They now reside in a secure place.
Ladislas: I heard tell of the mutiny—and of thy execution. I had believed I wouldst never lay eyes on thee again.
Marianne: ... I deserted.
Marianne avoids his gaze.
Ladislas: Hm ... Gargoyles truly have no place amidst the many misfortunes cast down by God.
His answer surprises her. She studies this cousin she hasn't seen in so long.
Like all its soldiers, this war has weathered him. But something strange, something almost obsessive, lingers beneath the surface.
Marianne: Why speak such words, cousin? Where do you plan to go?
Marianne: How did you know I was here?
Ladislas keeps walking.
Ladislas: I too am a Gargoyle. It took little effort to locate thee.
Ladislas: Come. Thou dost desire to see her, yea?
Marianne: You mean ...
Ladislas: Verily. Our dear cousin, Agnès.
In a brief silence, both heads turn toward Agnès's home.
Marianne: Agnès yet tarries here ...?
Marianne: Why did she not flee with the others? Is she hurt?
Ladislas: Hm. Then tis true she spake not of it to thee.
Ladislas turns to scrutinize Marianne, a hint of irony behind his eyes.
Marianne: ... She spake of offering aid to those displaced by the war.
Ladislas: Yea, the most saintly among us.
Ladislas: Generous, kind, compassionate to strangers and kin alike.
Ladislas: ... But those whom she aided wert not here but in Armand.
Ladislas: She did receive one pleading letter from a distant branch and traveled there forthwith, a small fortune in her pockets, to that place soon to be engulfed by war.
Ladislas: She wished to abate thy worrying, and thus omitted her place in her letters.
Marianne: No ... She wouldn't lie.
Ladislas: sigh Thou dost understand her as shallowly as thou grasp'st faith.
Ladislas opens the door. In the center of the lounge stands a Gargoyle statue.
It's her dear cousin—curled forward, forever weeping.
Marianne: Agnès?!
She rushes forward and falls to her knees before the statue.
Marianne: Wake up, it's me, Marie! I've returned!
The statue does not move.
Marianne: What ... why will she not awaken ...?
Ladislas: She cannot.
Marianne: ...!
Ladislas: Hast thou forgotten the power of our bloodline?
Ladislas: To awaken from petrification, one must preserve a final shred of flesh.
Ladislas: It seems instinct alone did drive thee to maintain a modicum of thy flesh on the battlefield.
Ladislas: Agnès, however, chose full petrification, and with it, the meeting of the Revelation.
Marianne: ... What happened in Armand?
Marianne: I have never seen her so afeared as to do such a thing ...
Marianne: ... Were those visions truly a warning of the divine?
Marianne: What ... can I do to wake her?
Reality overlaps with hallucination. Fear rises hot in her chest again.
She trembles as panic grips her.
Ladislas: Cousin, dost thou not yet see? Hath this filthy war so utterly blinded thee?
Fighting her dizziness, Marianne barely manages to peer up as Ladislas spreads his arms.
Ladislas: Humanity hath grown ignorant and proud, bending knee and clasping hand at reason's feet—taking it as sacred truth!
Ladislas: They lie, deceive, and manipulate in great measure, wearing "progress" and "freedom" as masks for their depravity.
Ladislas: God shall never abandon us, yea—but faced with such blasphemy, disappointment surely flourishes deep in His breast.
Ladislas: This endless bloodshed is His punishment.
Marianne: Then ... Agnès ...
Ladislas: We must not lay blame on the Lord, Cousin.
He speaks over her, crouching and gripping her shoulders tightly.
Ladislas: My eyes laid upon Agnès in such a state, I have come to know God's plan—Gargoyles are not to coexist with this war.
Ladislas: This catastrophe shall wipe clean this world of sin. Faith shall be reborn, and humanity shall resurrect from within our mortal flesh!
Ladislas: Come the end of this war, we shall build a world renewed! One which is truly fearful of the will of God!
Ladislas: Gargoyles have ever been the protectors of the sacred, demons in form yet divine in duty! God wills that we return His people to Him!
His eyes blaze with fanaticism.
Ladislas: That, my dear cousin, is why we must persevere through this calamity—not partake in it. We bear a loftier charge.
Marianne: ... Then, you too deserted, cousin?
Ladislas: Do not bind thyself to the rules of mortal men, cousin, for there is no true law but His.
Ladislas: In a purified world, under the light of the Lord's mercy, Agnès will return to us.
Ladislas: Dost thou understand, cousin?
She doesn't. Not entirely.
But in her crumbling world, those final words give her a sliver of hope.
Marianne: Come the end of the war ... Agnès will return ...
Marianne: So long as the war comes to an end ...
In a deserted church, Marianne brushes dust from a Gargoyle statue.
This church, not far from the village, is now her and Ladislas's refuge.
Marianne: Home is no longer safe, Agnès. We had no choice but to take you with us.
Marianne: But here, at least, you may feel God's light shine upon you. I hope you can forgive us ...
Marianne: I will pray for peace—for this war to end, so that you may return. May the Lord hear a sinner's prayer ...
Marianne: My understanding of our lineage is shallow, I admit.
Marianne: But Ladislas is learned in such things. His conviction must hold some truth I have yet to see ... right?
Agnès remains frozen in stone. She can no longer provide any answers to her questions.
