Rodan is not surprised, per se, when the summons reaches him. He's only surprised it took so long, and that it doesn't carry the air of an order.
He would have mistaken it as a call for a friend by a friend, but he knows his crimes. He knows it cannot be a request. This will be his trial, and very likely, his punishment.
The mountainous region where he finds his King is shrouded in mist, leaving the jagged, finally healed spines of Godzilla poking above the fog not unlike when he swims along just beneath the ocean's surface. Rodan would have laughed if his throat hadn't been closed up tight.
He lands lightly as his King raises his head. His body follows the gentle curve of the valley he is all but wedged in, and Rodan only has a moment to wonder why he chose this place before he spots the egg Godzilla is shielding. It is still small, young. Mothra has a ways to go yet.
He bows his head, half expecting to rise and receive a faceful of star-fire.
Instead, his King rumbles and asks, "Are you well, Rodan?"
He stares blankly for a heartbeat or two. "I... am well, yes."
"Your mind is your own? No side effects or lingering aches? I know well what Ghidorah was capable of."
"His control was severed during the battle," Rodan answers, quiet. Severed when Mothra stabbed him straight through, but only after the damage had been done.
Godzilla sighs, relaxes, and drops his head back into the imprint he has formed in the trees. "Good. I worried; Scylla and Methuselah both have said you have not seemed yourself these past weeks."
"I nearly killed her," he blurts his guilt out. "I am—she might have survived if I had not hurt her so badly."
His King narrows his eyes. "You were unwilling." It is not a question.
"Do you know what she would say if she were here?"
Rodan swallows heavily and shakes his head.
Godzilla twists until he can nudge his snout against his Queen's egg, the most gentle a creature like him will ever be. "She would say better her, who can come back, than one for whom death is permanent. I do not blame you, my friend. As I said, I know well the tortures Ghidorah was capable of."
Rodan trembles. He shakes his head, denial and self-loathing caught in his lungs like a disease. He forces himself to meet his King's discerning eyes. He feels more exposed than when Ghidorah was in his head.
The difference between his King and the false king: only one abused such a thing.
"Come here," Godzilla finally says. He settles back in, closing his eyes. "It's chilly in these mountains, and you are warm."
When his body moves in obedience, it is not because he is being controlled against his will. He tucks himself where he fits best, one wing stretched over Godzilla's back. He is careful not to touch Mothra's egg.
His King rumbles, the deep, quiet sort that is not quite a vocalization so much as it something inside him. It, as it always has, makes Rodan relax.
"I am sorry regardless," he says after a while.
"I know," his King replies. "I am sorry too. I was not fast enough to save you."
It is this, this wild notion that Rodan had been in danger and in need of rescue, that silences the cruel voice in his head that speaks ceaselessly of his guilt. It freezes him in place, trembles through his heart, and finally, finally, some dark shadow within him begins to fade.
