The Cursed Royal Procession
Princess Mimi, Suona Fanfare, and what it means for a field to carry voice back to dignity
The Cursed Royal Procession
Princess Mimi, Suona Fanfare, and what it means for a field to carry voice back to dignity
Mimi was not having a “behaviour day.”
That phrase is too small.
Mimi was tiny, cute, cuddly, and feral in the way only a very small child can be feral — the kind of child who wants squeezes, snuggles, warmth, and safety, but will also claw your face off if the field gets stupid.
Feral cute.
Like someone took a plush toy, gave it a sword, and forgot to install the customer-service setting.
Mimi did not use spoken language in the way most people expect. She communicated with her body, her eyes, her AAC device, gestures, sounds, movement, refusal, proximity, fury, and occasionally the kind of vocalization that makes adults look at each other and quietly wonder whether they signed the right contract.
She was also tired.
Her body was not agreeing with her. Sleep had been thin. Food had been hard. Her skin hurt. Her body was itchy. Her favourite thing at the end of the week — swimming — had been taken away because her body wasn’t safe enough for it. The thing that usually helped her get through the week — the golden carrot, the bright future, the “if I can just get there” anchor — was gone.
That really sucks.
A lot.
When a child’s body hurts, their future disappears, their comfort access gets shaky, and their communication costs more than usual, behaviour is not the first problem.
Carry is.
Can the field carry the child when everything gets expensive?
That is the question.
And on this day, the answer was about to get very loud.
The Desk Outside the Room
Mimi was at her desk outside the classroom because she had been “too loud.”
Of course.
The classroom was right there. The thing she wanted was inside. The world she was being kept from was inside.
And Mimi was outside.
Two adults were nearby because Mimi had been a lot recently. Physical aggression, throwing, kicking, biting, clawing, charging, hair-pulling, self-injury — all of it had been showing up. The field was scared of her. Not because people did not care. They did care. But they were tired, spooked, and bracing.
And when adults brace around a child, the child can feel it.
Mimi began communicating.
First, eye gaze.
Missed.
Then pointing. Repeated pointing. Throwing her hand toward the classroom — a known signal.
Denied.
“No, Mimi. We have to be outside for five.”
Then palms slapping the table.
Protest. Frustration. You are not getting it.
Corrected.
“Too loud, Mimi. Not okay.”
Then scream.
Adult voice answered with adult control.
“Sit down, Mimi.”
Then more adult voice.
“Hey. No. Nuh-uh. Mimi, no.”
Then Mimi tried something else.
A vocalization. A half-word. A strange, stretched sound that was trying to become “class.”
She was still communicating.
The field answered with hands.
Two hands on her body. An attempt to force her back down.
And that was it.
Now Mimi was livid.
Not “noncompliant.”
Livid.
Because she had used gaze, gesture, pointing, sound, body, protest, and approximation. She had sent signal after signal after signal.
The field had answered each one as behaviour.
Mimi did not refuse to communicate.
Mimi communicated through every available channel until the field made each one more expensive.
“Use Your Words”
When the AAC device came over, the field was already hot.
That’s important.
A communication tool is not magic. It does not float above the field wearing a little halo. It still has to land inside a body. It still has to be held by a nervous system. It still has to exist inside timing, safety, trust, access, and cost.
By the time the device arrived, Mimi’s body was no longer safe enough to carry it.
She grabbed it.
Then she smashed her head into the screen.
The adult pulled it away quickly.
Mimi’s head hit the adult’s hand.
Now there was pain. Now there was blood. Now there was a visible cost.
Another adult came out.
Mimi escalated again.
Two adults. One small child. AAC displaced. Classroom door open. Everyone too loud, too close, too late.
Mimi started turtling.
That is important.
People see “aggression” and miss the fear underneath it.
Mimi was scared.
Then someone saw the device away from her and yelled:
“Why are her words over there?”
The whole class heard it.
Of course they did.
Because if a hallway has one job, it is to turn adult panic into surround sound.
And that line cracked the field open.
The device mattered.
Her words mattered.
But the device was not the whole voice.
And the voice was not the whole child.
But by the time someone said, “Use your words,” Mimi had already used all of them.
Ten Steps Away
I turned the corner right as the field cracked.
I was about ten steps away.
I saw the scratch.
I saw the open classroom door.
I saw the adults.
I saw the device.
I saw Mimi turtling.
I heard the yell.
I did not run.
Running would have added predator energy.
I did not stroll, either.
Strolling would have been fake calm. Nobody needs fake calm in a hallway crisis. Fake calm is just panic wearing beige.
I glided.
And I jingled my keys.
That was the first attempt.
The audience does not know this yet, but the keys are not a command. They are not “come here.” They are not dog training, although yes, I am absolutely willing to admit some of my best strategies have suspiciously strong dog-training energy.
Hey, don’t look at me like that.
If the strategy works and preserves dignity, I’m not above borrowing from the golden retriever cinematic universe.
The keys were a sound.
A known sound.
A safe sound.
Mimi loved certain sounds. She was an auditory sensory seeker. There were sounds she could find from across a room and immediately latch onto. The jingle of my keys was one of them.
Last year, those keys had been the first step in one of our calming routines.
So I jingled them.
Nothing.
Mimi did not take.
She was still scared. Still turtling. Still inside the threat.
So, I moved closer.
Not fast.
Not casual.
Controlled.
Halfway there, I jingled the keys again.
My shoes dragged against the floor with that awful gravel-scrape sound nonslip shoes make when they refuse to squeak politely like normal shoes with manners.
Mimi usually loved that sound, too.
Still nothing.
The first signal did not land.
I did not make it louder —
I changed signals.
Gorilla Protocol
The next known-good pathway was Gorilla Protocol.
Yes.
Does exactly what it says on the tin.
I wiggled my arms like a jellyfish and grunted like a gorilla.
Mimi saw me.
Her head whipped around.
For half a second, her body said:
What the actual heck is Tony doing here?
Then, she screamed —
A banshee scream.
This is the part where you think, “Oh no, Tony’s about to get smoked, too…!”
A scream is not always escalation.
Sometimes, a scream is the first sign the child found the room again.
Mimi was no longer fully inside turtle. She had oriented. She had located me. She had found a known signal-carrier.
That was movement.
Not calm.
Movement.
So, I stopped.
Arms crossed.
Body language only.
No, girl. That’s not it.
Then I did it again.
Gorilla.
Mimi watched.
Then, she mirrored me.
She stood straight.
Arms crossed.
There she was.
Not fixed.
Not calm.
Not compliant.
There.
The protocol had been confirmed.
So, I gave her Gorilla attempt number two.
She responded.
Gorilla.
The point was not to be funny.
The point was to find the signal her body could still afford.
The Keys on the Ground
The keys were still on the ground from the first failed attempt.
That detail matters.
Because one of the kids peeked through the open classroom door.
Of course he did.
His name in this story is Kevin, and Kevin is exactly the kind of kid who will smell nonsense through drywall. If there’s a bit happening within a thirty-metre radius, Kevin’s goblin radar activates.
Kevin had been in Mimi’s class the year before.
He knew me.
He knew some of the routines.
He saw the keys.
And he knew exactly what he was looking at.
The adults saw keys on the ground.
Kevin saw the ritual waiting to be picked up.
He laughed and yelled:
“Do it again, Mr. Tony!”
I stared him down.
Mimi turned toward him.
Then she made a strange sound.
A gurgle.
Not random.
A greeting.
For some inexplicable reason, Mimi remembered Kevin. They were not best friends. They were not inseparable. They did not have some precious adult-approved friendship narrative with laminated visuals and a social skills objective stapled to it.
They had a sound.
At some point, somewhere, Kevin had made a silly gurgle sound.
Mimi remembered.
And now, in the middle of the hallway rupture, she greeted him with it.
The adults had been trying to get her to “use her words.”
Mimi had just greeted a peer in a language the field almost missed.
Kevin pointed to the keys.
Mimi followed his finger.
Oh.
Keys.
She picked them up.
Then, she tilted her head, crossed her eyes, and jingled those keys in front of her face like the most cursed stim ever forged in the hallway mines.
The soundfield came back online.
The Fanfare Walks
By then, I was close enough to get down to her level.
There was a pause.
A little vacuum.
Mimi had the keys.
The adults were frozen.
The classroom was watching.
The hallway was still holding its breath.
Then, I opened the old ridiculous song routine.
Not with instruction.
Not with comfort-talk.
With sound.
Mimi’s body lit up.
Feral-cute went into max-performance mode.
She fired the next line of the routine and shoved the keys toward my face like they were a microphone.
I answered with the matching call.
Then I took one step back.
She struck a pose and did it again.
I answered again.
Then I started walking away.
She bounced after me.
Not dragged.
Not guided by adult hands.
Not coaxed with “come on, sweetie.”
She bounced.
She performed herself out of the rupture.
The first clean exit did not look like de-escalation.
It looked like a tiny feral concert walking down the hallway.
We turned the corner.
Kevin thought I had robbed him of the best part.
Poor Kevin.
He should have known better.
I stepped back into view just enough to look him dead in the eyes.
Deadpan.
Setup.
And from further down the hallway, Mimi fired the punchline.
Kevin received the receipt.
The bit had left with Mimi.
The punchline came back without me holding it.
That is carry.
Princess Reset
Once we were away from the rupture zone, we moved into the reset ritual.
First, favourite-song chorus.
Why did Mimi like this song?
No idea.
Children are mysterious little raccoons with preferences. Sometimes the best professional answer is: iunno; but, the raccoon has selected the shiny object and I will now respect the shiny object.
The keys became her microphone.
That’s important.
She controlled the mic.
She controlled when she was talking.
Then, she handed the keys back.
That was her signal.
Done.
So, I stood beside her and held out my elbow.
No command.
No “take my arm.”
Just invitation.
Mimi shook herself off like a dog.
Yes.
Like a dog.
Then, she placed her arm in my elbow like a dainty princess.
And Butler Mode activated.
Bad British accent. Full commitment. No dignity left in my body. Dignity was being rerouted to the child. I was simply the payment vessel.
I narrated her every step.
“What dainty footsteps, Your Highness.”
“How fitting for one of your royal stature.”
I told people we passed to bow to the princess.
When they looked confused, I made snide remarks about the collapse of manners in modern society.
This is where people sometimes misunderstand what is happening.
This was not distraction.
This was role restoration.
Mimi had entered the hallway as a crisis.
She was leaving it as royalty.
The same hallway that had made her look dangerous now had to make room for her dignity.
And then it happened.
Her hand rose to the back of her mouth.
She leaned back.
And out came the laugh.
Yes.
An ojousama laugh.
An anime princess-villain laugh.
No, I am not okay.
For readers without anime poisoning: imagine a tiny royal gremlin suddenly revealing she has been attending villainess finishing school in secret.
That was Mimi.
Fear-body had left.
Play-body was back.
uwuuu~
The Librarian
The first adult we passed was the librarian.
She looked at me like I had lost my entire professional license in one sentence.
Her face said:
What did you just say?
Fair.
Honestly, fair.
I did not explain.
Explanations are expensive and the bit was live.
So, I stayed in Butler Mode.
“Oh my word. I cannot even—let us begone.”
Mimi flipped her hair in disdain.
That hair flip was not cute garnish.
That was a receipt.
She held character under public witness.
The librarian’s confusion did not collapse her back into fear. It became material for the role.
Five minutes earlier, adults were trying to contain her body.
Now, she was judging the staff.
Excellent progress.
No notes.
Hear Ye, Hear Ye
We followed a predetermined hallway loop.
Yes, this was a protocol.
Yes, it was called the Royal Procession protocol.
No, I will not be taking questions from people who hate joy.
At a certain intersection, I picked up the radio and made an announcement that had not been made all year.
“HEAR YE, HEAR YE~ Ms. Sam, your presence is required forthwith.”
Crackle.
“Excuse me?”
Oh no.
Protocol broken.
Mimi was not going to like that.
I deadpanned into the radio:
“Come over to the place.”
I turned toward Mimi.
She was about to cry.
Not because Sam was bad.
Not because one confused adult had ruined everything forever.
Because the ritual had started to wobble.
The field had carried Mimi all the way to royalty.
Then one confused adult almost turned the crown back into a behaviour plan.
So, I gave Mimi judgment.
“Princess Sparklebottom. What say ye? Does she get to live today?”
Mimi frowned.
Thumbs down.
Excellent.
“Frown and thumbs down! She turns into a clown!”
The ritual held.
Barely.
But it held.
Clown Debt
Sam arrived.
This time, she saw it.
Formation.
Princess Mimi.
Butler.
Judgment.
Clown debt.
And to her credit, Sam joined immediately.
She bounced.
She begged forgiveness.
She acted goofy five paces behind us.
Now Mimi blinked.
Her hand slowly went up to her face.
My hand slowly went up to mine.
Sam’s hand slowly went up to hers.
The ritual restored.
Sam bounced forward and knelt before Mimi.
Mimi hugged Sam’s head and closed her eyes.
“uwuuu~”
Sam offered her hand.
Mimi took it.
And then they skipped back to class.
I stayed where I was and watched them go down the hallway.
Around the corner.
Gone.
I did not carry Mimi back to class.
I carried the field until the field could carry her.
That is the receipt.
Tessa
Then Tessa appeared beside me.
I had not heard her approach.
Of course.
Tessa is one of those children who materializes when the field is interesting, like a raccoon spirit summoned by emotional debris.
She stood beside me and said:
“That’s so cringe.”
I looked at her.
“I’m never going to do this for you. You know that, right?”
“Aww. But I want it.”
“Ship’s sailed, girl.”
“Boo.”
“Hey. Where are you supposed to be right now?”
Tessa beamed.
Then, she waved her hand in front of her face.
Suona Fanfare.
And skedaddled away.
Ugh.
Tessa.
Tessa did not need the procession.
She only needed proof that the field still had magic in it.
She asked for the crown.
I gave her the boundary.
She stole the fanfare anyway.
The Bandaid
I walked toward the classroom to check the field.
The upset EA was sitting at the desk with Mimi’s AAC device open to the app.
The scratched one.
The one who bled.
The reader is allowed to sweat here.
Because the obvious read is:
She is angry.
She has every right to be angry.
She got hurt.
Mimi skipped over.
The EA turned her head.
She did not say anything.
Beat.
Then the EA bowed her head and closed her eyes.
Mimi approached.
And Mimi knighted her.
Then Mimi handed her a bandaid.
Clean yourself.
The EA put it on.
Mimi kissed the bandaid.
The EA opened her arms.
Mimi melted into her.
uwuuu~
No forced apology.
No “say sorry.”
No adult-scripted moral performance.
No confession booth.
No apology theatre.
Mimi did not say sorry.
Mimi settled the account.
The apology was not spoken.
It was paid.
Reconciliation
I do not teach apology theatre.
I hate apology theatre.
An apology can be performed without repair.
Reconciliation requires the relationship to carry again.
A child can be made to say the words, satisfy the adults, close the visible loop, and leave the relationship completely unchanged.
Sometimes worse.
Because now, the adults got their little moral receipt and the actual hurt is still sitting there, unpaid, wearing a party hat.
No.
I want reconciliation.
Recognize harm.
Take ownership.
Work with the hurt party to repair the relationship.
Return stronger.
That is different.
In this story, Mimi did not need to produce a sentence to satisfy adult discomfort.
She needed to repair.
She saw the hurt.
She brought the bandaid.
She touched the wound with care.
She returned to the person.
The person opened their arms.
The relationship carried again.
That was the closure.
Not words.
Repair.
A device can hold words.
A field has to hold the child.
The End
I did a drive-by.
“And they lived happily ever after.”
Kevin, still somehow exactly where a goblin should not be, said:
“The end~”
I looked him dead in the eyes.
Suona Fanfare.
Then I walked back to my room.
I did not stay to be thanked.
I did not stay to explain.
I did not stay to become the story.
Carry means the story can end without you standing in the frame.
Epilogue: Tony Suona
There was another story connected to the same signal.
Kevin had been having a rough year. New field. Hard adjustment. Family stuff. The kind of year where the ground underneath a child changes and everyone still expects them to walk like nothing moved.
One day, he saw me do the John Cena hand motion.
That was the doorway.
Wrestling.
The trumpet pop.
The bit.
He started talking to me.
Then one day, another kid walked down the hallway.
Kai.
Kai saw the signal.
Kai lit up.
He got right in Kevin’s space with the full recognition blast.
Yeah, that’s right.
Kai saw Kevin.
The irony was lost on nobody.
They did not know each other.
But they knew the bit.
That was enough.
Verbal kid. Nonverbal kid. Woodchips. Wrestling roleplay. No actual moves, because we are not turning recess into a lawsuit buffet. Just reenacted matches, shared rhythm, shared signal, shared belonging.
Sometimes friendship does not start with a social skills lesson.
Sometimes friendship starts because one kid sees another kid carrying the same ridiculous fanfare.
That is Suona Fanfare.
John Cena has the trumpet pop.
Tony has the suona.
The suona is a tiny Chinese instrument with the confidence of an entire orchestra. Loud. Distinct. Ceremonial. Moist mosquito big-band energy. Somehow charming. Absolutely impossible to ignore.
Which is why Kevin eventually landed the critical hit.
“John Cena — you can’t see him. But Tony? He’s so cringe… you can’t help BUT see him. He’s Tony… Tony SUONA!”
I spit out my water.
Because yes.
That is the joke.
John Cena disappears.
Tony Suona announces himself like a cursed hallway brass section.
Unfortunately, it works.
Closing
Voice isn’t just access to words.
Voice is gaze, gesture, object, rhythm, sound, timing, proximity, repair, refusal, return, and every strange little bridge a child builds because the world keeps making language too expensive.
Mimi’s voice was never gone.
The field had simply stopped recognizing all the ways she was using it.
Carry means recognizing the signal before it becomes rupture.
Carry means holding the ritual long enough for someone else to join.
Carry means leaving when the field can carry without you.
And sometimes, carry looks like a tiny feral princess, a bandaid, an ojousama laugh, a hallway goblin, and a cursed suona fanfare cutting through the whole orchestra to announce:
The child is still here.
The story is not over.
The field can still learn the song.
A device can hold words.
A field has to hold the child.
Carry means leaving when the field can carry without you.
No post next week or so.
I’m charging lasers.
Please remain calm and stop touching the cursed instrument case.
Tiny cursed media note
Yes, the linked video from the ritual is dated.
Yes, that is part of the point.
No, I will not be taking questions from the Council of Taste.