[There's the smallest ripple of cold amusement. Someone like him thinks of the group on occasion, certainly, but for very particular ends.] More realistically, several dozen individual wishes cannot be granted in tandem. There's no way to fully satisfy what many will, unless it's the will of the many.

[Even to break Mr. Tibbs up into many little pieces and let everyone have their own pound of flesh wouldn't be enough to quell every call for justice. Caren can't be sure if she ever intended to cast her vote one way or another. Now, she certainly doesn't intend to cast a vote of any significance into his fate.

This isn't the first time they've done this. Competing again to see which allegiance comes out on top when none of them even seem to exist as they once were feels...hollow. They are pantomiming loyalty. With Mr. Tibbs, they are pantomiming justice. If all rights itself as the instruction they received before coming here implies, there is the chance none of this will feel like it ever happened in the first place.]

Maybe the game we played in the first place [the collecting of sand, held hostage on the Scorching Isle by the creature whose fate they debate now] was actually the anomaly in the first place? With this choice, we could right a mistake. [VERY BOLD to insinuate that nothing they did in that frigid, Blighted prison should have mattered to begin with. This will surely not have consequences when they're all sap-drunk later.]