//------------------------------//
// Wondrous Words 
// Story: Three More Things! 
// by Tatsurou 
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	The pattern created by that first day when Jackie visited persisted in Uncle's Antiques for some time, whether or not Jackie was actually there.  Uncle would wake up, have his coffee, and feed the fillies.  He would then mind the shop and do research until Scootaloo started pawing at the front door.  If Jackie was there, Uncle would have him take the fillies out for some exercise.  Jackie would have some degree of 'bad day' based on how well he anticipated the trios energetic antics.  If Jackie wasn't there, Uncle would take them out himself, and they would behave with him all the way to the park, where their magic would get away from them to a certain extent, at which point Uncle would take them back to the shop.

After that first day, Uncle had started to teach them meditation, in the hopes of teaching them to better guide and control the powerful magic surging through them.  While they took the instructions well enough, more often than not they fell asleep in their chosen meditation positions: Apple Bloom in a planter surrounded by bonsai trees that flourished in her presence, Scootaloo on her tame cloud which continued to ignore physics by maintaining itself in the shop (Uncle tolerated it because it absorbed excess humidity to maintain itself, which was good for the antiques), and Sweetie Belle on his head.  Uncle had given up trying to convince her not to sit there, and instead had decided to wait until someone complimented him on his 'fashionable headgear' to make his point for him.  The fillies had already shown that they understood when someone spoke to them, and Uncle had taken to switching between speaking to them in English and Chinese.  He figured Sweetie Belle would eventually take offense to being called a hat and decide not to sit there anymore.

After the trio fell asleep in meditation, Uncle would cover Apple Bloom and Scootaloo in a blanket and Sweetie Belle with a winter hat before returning to his research.  When they awoke, he'd feed them dinner and then engage them in tasks around the shop to focus their magic.  Scootaloo was given a duster to clean up high around the shop, working her way down.  Apple Bloom was set to tending a hanging vegetable and spell ingredient garden.  Sweetie Belle was set to shelving books, as Uncle had - with Jackie's assistance - put a color coded sticker at the base of each book, matching an identical sticker on their spot on the shelves.

Once the three were tired out at the end of their chores, Uncle would give them a night time snack of the chi magic supplement he'd given them when they first arrived, modified as they'd started to grow a bit according to the formula given in the book, and incorporating a few of the plants that the new book listed as being good for health.  Once they'd eaten, he'd put them to bed together in a basket he'd left at the foot of his own bed.  At first he'd leave it at that, but he'd quickly discovered that none of them slept well if he didn't give each of them a good night kiss...and if they didn't sleep well, neither did he.  They were quite vocal when they needed or wanted something.

One thing Uncle had noticed as he'd tended to the trio was that, as much as the pendants made them seem ordinary to others, people still seemed to be aware at some level that the three were more than just ordinary animals.  Their presence in the shop when someone was browsing, making a purchase, or making a sale often resulted in a much more amicable discussion, allowing Uncle to easily maximize profits on exchanges.  Even the most hardened of his customers turned to goo when all three of them made an effort to be adorable.

In order to keep them entertained in the mornings, Uncle had invested in a few cat toys after seeing how much all three liked batting at things.  He made certain to institute the rule that all such playing was done upstairs, and as a result one of Sweetie's most common spot magic practice involved snatching a toy out of the air as it fell down the stairs or from the second floor landing.  He quickly grew used to the sounds of tiny hooves dashing back and forth above his head...and capable of distinguishing between those and the sound of Scootaloo's hooves on the ceiling above his head.  She often tried to sneak that, and found it highly amusing when he called her on it, even if she did immediately obey.

By the end of the third month taking care of the fillies, Uncle had gotten so used to their presence and the new habits developed from taking care of them that he could do most of it without even thinking.  At the same time, he was surprised to find that he enjoyed having them there with him.  He kept his mind as far away from that realization as he could, however.  He knew that as soon as he reached the point where he never wanted to let them go, he would have to.  Besides, they were only left with him in trust.  It wasn't his place to want to keep them.

As a result, he was actually pleased when his late night ruminations over these subjects were interrupted by the three fillies wailing, apparently upset that he wasn't in bed yet or something similar.  However, Uncle's own mixed emotions resulted in him feeling a bit harsher than he actually wanted, so instead of calmly going up the stairs, he stomped up them and threw the door to his bedroom open.  "What?" he demanded angrily.  "You had food, you had play, you had exercise, you have bed!  What more do you want from Uncle?"

"Unca!" all three fillies called out at once.

Uncle staggered back, stunned.  While he'd noticed that the babbling sounds they'd made were not equine, he'd never have imagined...  "Aiyah!" he screamed out.  "You can talk?"

"Aiyah!" the trio called back, throwing their hooves into the air happily.