[CUTTING ROOM FLOOR] A scene that's meaningful... · 11:44pm Oct 31st, 2021
...but just doesn't fit.
Which is a damn shame! If you don't mind minor spoilage for Chapter 8 of Empire and haven't read it yet (as of this blog post it should be up as a whole chapter within an hour or two) then take a look. It won't spoil the biggest stuff in the chapter, but it's a little salve on the heartbreak that happens. You can probably guess the context.
Three years later…
Applejack took in the sight of the new barn in the fading light of dusk as she adjusted her backpack absently. She hadn’t gone in to check in with Granny yet. She knew the older woman was probably getting worried, she was supposed to go check in with her grandmother as soon as she got to the farm, and Mother Faust above knew that the trip had been long and hard and she just wanted to go to her old room and kick off her shoes…
With a sigh, she looked down at the sneakers her aunt had bought her a few months ago. The Oranges had been…nice. Sure, she loved her aunt and uncle dearly, and they really did try their best to make the girl feel welcome while her grandmother dealt with the bureaucracy of the courts and Child Protective Services just to keep Mac and Applebloom in the home. Macintosh staying on the farm so he could do the work his father used to do just made sense, and nobody had wanted to propose lil’ Applebloom be given to anyone but her grandmother, but Applejack? A small part of the young teen resented that the decision to send her to live with relatives had been made for her, but another part welcomed the chance to get away from the farm, from the reminder of how her parents…left her. Ultimately, though, the Oranges just weren’t a good fit for her. She’d always be grateful, and their willingness to take her into their home for however long was needed just showed that they remembered their roots as Apples. Applejack just got too restless, day after day, wanting to look out her bedroom window to see the orchards spread out to what felt like the horizon, the sun peeking out over the rim of the world at the break of day…no, she couldn’t stay in the city, no matter how loving her extended family had been.
She pulled herself out of the dark thoughts and looked up at the façade of the barn. She lifted her hand to touch the wood…and frowned at the coarse, dry, splintery surface under her hand. It was too…new. It didn’t feel right to her. But then, it was like her. Young, untested, and eager to prove itself. “Well, girl,” she said, amused at her own presumption of anthropomorphizing a building, “Looks like you’n me, we’re gonna get t’know each other, and we’re gonna show the world that y’can’t keep an Apple down…”
A deep voice interrupted her quiet conversation with the barn, “Jackie, ‘that you?”
She turned to see Macintosh, looking taller and definitely more filled out than when she had last seen him in person. A grin split her face as she turned fully to greet her brother, “Well look at you! All grown up! Do they call you ‘Big Macintosh’ now?”
Her older brother rolled his eyes. “Good t’see you to, sis. Now c’mon, Granny’s about to go spare waitin’ for you to get here.”
At that, she broke into a trot as her brother turned back to the house. “Don’t you go spoilin’ my entrance! How’s Applebloom? ‘bet she’s as rowdy as I was at that age…”
He grinned back at her as they climbed the porch steps, “More! An’ she’s gettin’ in trouble with a new pack o’ friends. Pretty much only way we can keep ‘em from makin’ trouble is by sittin’em in front of a TV with a DVD runnin’.”
Applejack snickered as she reached for the old, familiar door on the farmhouse, turning the knob to finally come home.
I like it.
I see why it was cut, but good nonetheless.