How to explain in a way a child would understand? He considered a moment before replying. "No amount of hard work will provide us with skills and resources that we simply do not have and can't get on this Isle," he said. "For example, if someone were badly hurt, we have no healers, and little means to care for them. We have wood in plenty thanks to the brambles, but little means to harvest or work it as we lack suitable tools and have no means to make them. Even once the weather becomes warm enough for any sort of bath, without supplies from the mainland we lack even something as basic as soap and have no means to make it."

"This Isle does not and cannot stand on its own. And we would be fools if we let stubborn pride tell us otherwise."