Timothy sat at the head of a quiet classroom and that was a real problem. It was quiet, not silent.

He sat on a padded mat, legs loosely crossed in front of him as he considered the twenty children of various ages on similar mats in front of him. In the back right of the room ten year old Bobby was sprawled out on his mat tapping away at the stone to the side. Jenine, eleven and in the second row to the right side, was humming again. Fergy, lying on his belly with his chin propped up on his palm, was kicking the floor.

Sprawled out was fine. Lying on their belly was fine. Timothy himself was hardly flexible enough to fold into some eastern guru shape. Random noises were not fine. These exercises were difficult enough without distractions.

Difficult, he mused, might not be the correct description. Sure they were hard, but most of the difficulty was related to attention span. Focusing on something to the exclusion of all else was hard. Doing it over and over again without any proof of improvement was even harder.

“Let's take a break.” Timothy spoke, trying to keep the disappointment out of his voice. They were just children, he reminded himself. Their attention span was not great at the best of times.

A jumble of excited babbling exploded to fill the vacuum as the children jumped to their feet to stretch out muscles and relieve excess energy. He simply waited, giving them time to get it out of their systems. “Five minutes everyone.”

“Yes, Mr. Timothy!” They chorused joyfully.

He chuckled sadly, imagining how joyful they would be when he called an end to the five minutes.

He wasn’t great at waiting, but he was getting better. There were far too many things he hadn’t had time to think about yet. Spending a few minutes inside his head catching up would hardly be a chore.

“Alright time’s up, back to your seats.”

A jumble of complaints and reluctant compliance echoed about the small room.

Timothy had played this particular game more than a few times, he knew the rules and so did they. He gave them another fifteen seconds to find their mats, then made an exaggerated gesture to trigger the usual enchantment.

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A shock field in particular. Small static charges would shock anyone inside the field. The mats were specifically exempted.

It was not pointlessly cruel, lessons had to be learned and rules enforced. When they weren't... The image of a small child with a beak shaped hole in his skull waged war with another being dragged under by piranhas in his mind. Being soft was not being kind.

None were caught off their pads.

Timothy began to speak, “Why are we sitting here today?”

Several hands shot into the air. But as they did Timothy caught a muttered “Because you make us.”

A quick gesture activated a motion wand hidden as a bracelet on Timothy’s arm. A twenty sided dial linked it to each pad's position; the enchantment picked the boy from the third row and flung him from the room. It did slow him down before he landed outside.

“I have said this a dozen times but it bears repeating. This class is optional. You must want to be here for it to do any good.” He smiled at the remaining students, “What can’t you do while you are here?”

“Disrupt those who want to learn.” They dutifully chorused back.

“Exactly! You have a question Rachel?”

The extremely petite blonde dropped her raised hand. “Canwedotherunninginsteadofthis?”

“Try that again dear, just go a bit slower.” Timothy smiled encouragingly at the small girl. She was a very hard worker, just a bit too jittery.

She took a deep breath, to his amusement, and focused as if she were approaching a highly difficult task. “Can we do the running training instead of this please?” she pointed to the smooth piece of slate in front of her and the dust bunny sitting on it.

“No. But since you asked nicely I don’t mind explaining why not. Pushing your limits while running trains willpower. You‘ve all done it. You know how it feels to push that little bit faster than your body is telling you it can handle. Each time you manage it, it becomes easier in the future. Day by day you can feel yourself improving. And that’s the problem.”

He smiled sadly at the class. “To self awaken you need to be willing to keep trying without positive feedback. The strength of will you gained from running can help if used in moderation. If you focus on just running then it will restrict you. You will start to link breakthroughs in will to the physical euphoria of running. Tying your young wills to the physical, when what you need is the mental.”

“No running, today we try to move dust bunnies. Next time we might go with feathers floating in the air, or predicting where a rain droplet will fall. It’s not the task itself that is important. It’s forging a will that can command the world and make it obey.”

“Not a will.” He corrected himself, “Your will.”

“I can’t tell if you are actually trying to succeed or just sitting there waiting for the class to end. No one but you can tell if you are trying your hardest. I can’t make you study and I can’t make you succeed.”

“It’s all up to you.”

“All I can do is to tell you, over and over. That it’s worth it!”

“Now let's try again shall we?”