Devin's smirk turns a shade brittle. "In war." He retrieves more bags, talking and working. "Protecting or shoring up trenches, mostly, so they wouldn't collapse in on us when it rained and snowed; it's easier to use sand to build upwards from a ditch than try to dig up frozen ground eight feet deep and hundreds of yards long. Fortunately, those conflicts have been over for a while."

Another bag is placed with a loud thwump, and a second follows. Devin kneels to work on tying them in place with thick cord, his hands deft and sure with the knots. What has Rutile questioning their place in the world, he wonders?

"I'm not a librarian where I come from," he adds wryly, glancing over at them. One does not earn the scars he bears from shelving books. "Though I do spend a lot of time reading when I'm not otherwise occupied."