I think getting a gun pulled on me and being shot point blank would've been less surprising than what my father just uttered.
In a perfect world, I would have had a cool, suave reaction to the verbal bomb Emperor Helio had just dropped. Instead, I made some barely intelligible words and sounds like a baby learning to speak for the first time.
"Oh! UmwowIuh... Inevereverthoughtaboutthat...sothat'suh...wowIcan't...I...ha... ya..." I trip over my words over and over as I process what he just said.
While I have naturally speculated how one would go about trying to kill my father, it was never because I wanted to do so myself. Although the emperor may be semi-deadbeat, unemotional man, every breath he currently draws is a quasi-protection of mine. Quasi because the "protection" he provides is about as good as using the pull-out method for protection, no pun intended.
