Fujimoto stands towards the back of the group, watching the small party of women cheer in excitement. They clamber over each other to embrace the little boy holding his goldfish love in a bubble. Fujimoto edges backwards towards his boat dejectedly, tightening his dark cloak around him in disgust.
I must be cursed, he thinks. Fathers should not let this happen to their children. Fathers should protect their daughters not, he sneers, little boys.
"Sometimes Fathers do the best they can," a serene voice speaks calmly into in his ear.
He knows very well who the shining figure beside him is, but his eyes still widen in surprise at the sound of her voice and he peers over the periphery of his bushy head of hair just to be sure. When Granmamare kisses him gently on the cheek, he blushes profusely.
"Thank you, Fujimoto," the sea goddess says to him before rising over the crowd of women and the boy with the bubble.
Fujimoto touches the spot on his cheek where her lips once were. She is thanking Lisa and Lisa gives a promise to raise their daughter well. The world is a flash of gold and white as the Goddess of Mercy does her work and Fujimoto herds the seniors, the caretakers, and the small family into his boat.
He watches the way Sosuke cradles the bubble, shielding it from the curious fish that poke their heads at the goldfish girl inside it. The little boy knows very well that the bubble has powerful magic to protect it, but he shields it all the same. Fujimoto knows he would have done the same had he not so many responsibilities.
It's the curse of the father, Fujimoto thinks, you try and you try and you try but in no time at all someone younger and more foolish than you will come to take your place. Soon Sosuke will be grown and Koichi, the man Lisa speaks so passionately about, will have to let Sosuke and Ponyo go as well, perhaps feeling that he had not spent enough time devoted to his children. Koichi's father had done the same, Sosuke would too some day. Fujimoto thinks of some species of sea life and how their reproduction cycles yielded a similar tradition in some form or another.
He guides his ship and its passengers to the surface.
It has nothing to do with magic. It's not a curse. Just another life cycle.
With a sigh he carries the weight of Granmamare's words.
Fathers do the best they can.
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A/N: I have such a soft spot for Ponyo, it's such a gorgeous film and terribly adorable. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the story. Please read and review! :) All characters are copyright of the amazing Studio Ghibli.