Poke Fun PlayThe Mareep Night Parade
When the lanterns go dark, a nervous Mareep and a canal full of tiny lights must invent a parade that can move without a spotlight.
Seven minutes until the lanterns
At seven minutes before the parade, Mareep was rehearsing how to look casual. It would walk four steps, turn its head toward the crowd, and pretend that the hundreds of electric lanterns hanging over Willow Canal had nothing to do with it. Its job was to follow Flaaffy behind the first wagon. Nothing more. Mareep repeated the four steps so often that it wore a pale little track into the grass beside the assembly shed.
Flaaffy, who had led the parade twice before, stood perfectly still. This seemed an impressive skill. Mareep's tail orb brightened whenever it worried, and tonight it was practically advertising the entire contents of its mind. A boy named Ellis leaned out of the shed and grinned. 'If you keep shining like that, we can skip the lanterns.' Mareep lowered its tail. It wished humans would stop noticing things they were not supposed to notice.
The lanterns came on for their final test. Blue, gold, green: an enormous river of light stretching through the village and over the little stone bridge. Mareep forgot its rehearsed steps. It stared upward, awestruck, while the band struck three confident notes. Then every lantern went dark. The band stopped halfway through the fourth note. A very large drum rolled down the shed stairs, sounding a regrettably convincing announcement that the evening had gone wrong.
The repair crew arrived at the power cabinet beside the square. Something in the festival's separate supply had failed. They closed the cabinet and told everyone to keep clear while they checked it. No Pokémon was asked to power a cable, and no helpful villager was allowed to poke at the wires. 'Not before midnight,' the crew leader said at last. Parade time was now six minutes away, and midnight might as well have belonged to another season.
Ellis's grandmother, who organized the route, looked at the waiting wagons. They had been painted to resemble the night sky. Without their lights, they resembled three enormous dark cupboards. The largest needed its electric steering motor to turn safely and could not move at all. Children sat among cardboard stars with disappointed faces. A baker opened the shutters above the canal and called down that his buns would become morning buns if everyone stood there much longer.
Across the water, two Chinchou surfaced beneath the bridge. Their glowing antennae made small, steady circles on the canal. Mareep's tail answered them with a worried flicker. Flaaffy turned, looked at the flicker, then at the lights in the water. It walked four steps forward. The glow moved. It walked four more steps, and Mareep's glow followed. Ellis's grandmother watched those little circles travel along the path. She slowly took the enormous wagon key off its hook and put it away.
'We may have a parade,' she said, 'but we'll need a different route.' Mareep's rehearsed look of casual indifference disappeared. A different route meant different steps, different turns, and possibly being somewhere everyone could see. The Chinchou bobbed beneath the bridge. They did not seem worried about having a route. Of course, Mareep thought, they had the great advantage of already being underwater.
A route the lights could reach
The usual route climbed through the market, crossed the bridge, and returned along the high street. The Chinchou could not follow it. Ellis's grandmother unrolled a map on an empty bread tray and drew her finger along the lower canal path instead. That path was flat, wide, and bordered by a low wall. It reached the park without a single step. They could leave the wagons in the square and carry the cardboard stars by hand.
A few people objected. They had waited all year to see the painted wagons. Others worried that the path would be too dark, or that the procession would leave behind anyone who walked slowly. The grandmother agreed with the second concern immediately. She sent volunteers to place ordinary battery lamps at bends and crossings, checked the handrails, and asked the band to walk at the pace of the oldest neighbor attending. The first concern, she admitted, could not be fixed.
Mareep listened while its own glow climbed steadily brighter. If a hundred people were already arguing before it took a single step, what would happen when it walked in the wrong direction? Flaaffy touched its shoulder with a soft nose. They tried the new route together, leaving the crowd behind for a minute. Beneath the first willow, the canal widened. The Chinchou scattered into separate lights. In the open square of water their pattern looked unexpectedly like a handful of stars.
Ellis ran ahead with a cardboard moon. He held it up, hoping to cast a magnificent shadow over the water. The moon flopped backward and knocked his hat off. The Chinchou stared at the floating hat, which now looked like a small frightened boat. Ellis retrieved it with a long-handled net. Mareep laughed in a shy, breathy bleat. Its tail flashed, and the Chinchou flashed back. For one pleasant moment the evening resembled play rather than a test.
They discovered that the brightest glow was not always the most useful one. When Mareep stood too close to Flaaffy, people could not tell where the path continued. When the Pokémon spread out, their lights formed stepping points. The Chinchou had an easier time matching those points if the walkers moved slowly. The band tried a soft tune with long spaces between notes. The drum, now firmly attached to its player, supplied a beat that anyone could follow.
Ellis's grandmother moved the official start time by twelve minutes. She told the crowd exactly why and invited anyone who preferred to stay in the square to enjoy the buns and music there. Nobody was required to be adventurous in the dark. That announcement helped more than the map had. People stopped imagining they must hurry to save the old parade. They began preparing a new one. Children carried stars; neighbors checked shoes; the baker distributed napkins as if equipping an expedition.
Mareep returned to the grass beside the shed. Its familiar little track remained there. It could stay on that track, where every turn was known, or go with the moving lights. Flaaffy waited without urging it. Mareep took one step toward the canal. Then another. Its tail remained bright, but now the brightness pointed somewhere.
The dark bend
The procession set off with no grand switch being thrown. Flaaffy moved, Mareep followed, and the first Chinchou slipped downstream beside them. A child raised a cardboard star. Another raised an entirely convincing cardboard potato that had been intended as a comet. The band played quietly enough that footsteps could still be heard. People on balconies leaned forward to watch the line of light pass below their windows. Even the repair crew paused briefly outside the closed power cabinet.
At first Mareep concentrated entirely on its feet. Four steps, a turn, four steps, another turn. Then it noticed the canal reflections traveling alongside it. A tail orb could be two lights if the water was still enough. The cardboard stars were reflected too, wobbling into long silver shapes whenever a Chinchou swam beneath them. None of this had been included in the rehearsal. Mareep lifted its head. A little girl on a balcony waved to it, and Mareep forgot to look casual.
Beyond the third willow, a breeze rippled the canal. The Chinchou gathered beneath the low wall, avoiding the choppier water. Their lights disappeared from the middle of the channel, and the procession's shining constellation seemed to break apart. Mareep saw the gap and hurried to fill it. It bounded past Flaaffy, tail glowing, then stopped at the next bend. The walkers continued behind it. A moment later it realized it had moved too far ahead to see their faces.
The bend was perfectly safe, lit by a battery lamp and guarded by a volunteer. It was also suddenly lonely. Mareep could hear the band, but the music seemed to come from the wrong side of the trees. Its tail began to flicker. The volunteer crouched nearby without grabbing it. 'Wait here,' she said gently. 'They're coming around the willow.' Mareep waited. Every part of it wanted to run somewhere, and not one part could decide where.
A tiny golden circle appeared at the foot of the wall. One Chinchou had followed the sheltered edge of the canal all the way to the bend. It rose, paused, and dipped again. The circle came and went in a calm rhythm. Mareep watched it until its own breathing slowed. Then Flaaffy rounded the willow. Ellis came beside it with the recovered hat on his head. Nobody called Mareep foolish. The parade simply closed the little gap and continued.
This time Mareep walked near the middle. Flaaffy led, the youngest children followed Mareep's light, and a volunteer brought up the rear. There was no single place where all the brightness had to be. Where the water grew rough, the Chinchou moved along the edge. Where the path widened, the people spread out. The constellation changed its shape and remained a constellation. Mareep discovered that a steady glow did not require a completely steady heart.
At the park gate, the band stopped. The crowd grew quiet. Beyond the trees the open lawn waited, with a broad dark pond at its center. Ellis's grandmother raised one hand for the walkers to slow down. The Pokémon spread along the water, and the cardboard stars opened out behind them. From the houses on the hill, the village was beginning to see what the people inside the parade could not yet see.
A constellation with footsteps
The pond's footpath formed a loose oval. Flaaffy walked to one end, Mareep stopped near the other, and the Chinchou swam into the still water between them. Volunteers placed the portable lamps well back from the edge. Families stood along the path with their paper stars held high. From the hill it looked as if a constellation had fallen gently into the village and decided to take an evening stroll. The cardboard potato occupied an especially honored position near the moon.
Someone began to clap. Ellis's grandmother held up a hand, and the clapping softened before it overwhelmed the quiet music. Mareep stood very still. It no longer needed to pretend that nobody was looking. People were looking because its light helped them see each other. An older man pointed out a familiar shape in the pond reflections. A child disagreed with him. The man laughed and let the child name it instead. They named their invented constellation the Hat Retriever.
The baker arrived with his last tray balanced on his shoulder. His buns were still warm. He handed one to each volunteer before serving himself, and a particularly misshapen bun went to Ellis because it resembled the comet. Mareep received a bowl of its usual feed, since sugary festival food was not a sensible reward for every creature. It ate beside Flaaffy while the band tried a livelier tune. Its tail orb dimmed a little. That was all right. Other lights were there.
A little boy asked whether the lanterns would come back on at midnight. Probably, his mother said, when the crew had finished making the supply safe. Would they have the real parade then? He wanted to know. His mother looked at the pond, the wandering stars, and the neighbors sitting together on the grass. 'We already did,' she told him. He considered this, then asked whether next year's parade could include two potatoes. She referred that question to the organizing committee.
By the time they returned to the square, many of the watchers had joined the walk home. The band put its instruments away. Volunteers checked the route once more to collect scraps, ensure nobody had been left behind, and retrieve the lamps. The Chinchou stayed in the canal, trailing soft circles through the water. Mareep stopped at the shed to inspect the little worn track in the grass. It looked surprisingly small after the route it had just walked.
The electric lanterns returned the next morning, too late for anyone to cheer the switch. Ellis's grandmother did not blame the crew. She thanked them, then revised next year's plan. The wagons would remain, but the lower canal walk would be offered too. There would be a quiet section near the willows, enough light to move safely, and places to rest. No Pokémon would be required to glow brighter than it wished. There was, after all, quite a lot of sky available.
Mareep still rehearsed before the next parade. It practiced walking slowly, waiting at bends, and stopping when it needed to stop. Its tail glowed whenever it worried. But now, when Ellis leaned from the shed and said they could skip the lanterns, Mareep did not hide its tail. It gave a small, very certain bleat. Then it turned toward the canal, where the first patient light had already come to meet it.
An original fan-created story by the Poke Fun Play editorial team. Illustrations generated for this adventure.
Featured Pokémon
Mareep
Flaaffy
ChinchouKeep exploring
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