The sun shone hotly on the city of Sarajevo, on that June day.
The crowd was dense as curious bystanders dressed in summer clothes tried to catch a glimpse of the city’s guest of honor, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir of the double crown of Austria and Hungary, and his wife.
After all, it’s not every day the Austro-Hungarian nobility leaves Vienna to travel so far south, in the Balkans, near the border of the Empire. And the crowd was eager to see the future emperor, whom they said would grant more importance to the Serbian people once he sat on the throne of the double monarchy.
The intrigued people were not disappointed; the archduke appeared wearing a magnificent blue military uniform, and his spouse a hat with a mauve feather that would leave many women jealous for a good while among those of the Bosnian elite.
But the crowd that had come to see Franz Ferdinand were in for an incredible surprise. Trotting next to the imperial carriage, the people of Sarajevo and those that had made the trip from the countryside discovered a mare of great size, as white as the purest snow, with powerful wings on her sides and a horn on her head.
There was great discussion and a good deal of pinching amongst the crowd. Was this some sort of collective illusion? Horses in the archduke’s escort, by all means; but this strange creature?
With wings? And a horn? And a mane of many colors, that seemed to dance in the air without any wind as if it were gas?
Either the eyes of every spectator were tricking them all at once, or the waiters of the city cafés had served beer much too generously that morning!
Rumors quickly spread through the crowd, distorted and exaggerated with every passing person. Word spread of an extraordinary gift from the city to the archduke. Others said that it was in fact Franz Ferdinand himself that had brought this outlandish present to the mayor of Sarajevo, to reward him for remaining faithful to the Danube monarchy.
The beast was a far from usual sight, but this was the 20th century after all! Scientific research made huge steps forward everyday! Perhaps this was some newly discovered kind of equine?
A few spectators, those closest to the imperial carriage, swore that they heard the mare speak to the archducal couple in German. This earned them many disbelieving laughs from the others. Surely it was a gigantic hoax! The mare had no doubt been made to look like a winged unicorn, and some ingenious system gave it the illusion of speech, all to play a trick on the crowd. In his time, Ludwig II of Bavaria had been known for such moments of madness. It wouldn’t be the first time that the nobility used such eccentricities to impress its people.
The laughter died when a small bomb was seen flying towards the imperial carriage, bouncing off its roof before falling into the vehicle behind it and exploding with a deafening sound. Time seemed to suddenly stand still in Sarajevo and throughout the Empire. A bomb. Someone had thrown a bomb at the archduke!
The crowd stirred. Shouting, crying, and the screams of the wounded were heard. Once the smoke cleared however, the austro-hungarian heir was seen completely safe, and the convoy moved onwards. The police arrested a young man who had leapt into the river after the attack, and whom according to many witness accounts was the perpetrator. Everybody forgot about the strange mare for the time being.
Forty-five minutes later, after a stop at the mayor’s office, Franz Ferdinand and his wife stepped back into their carriage and the convoy left for the hospital, the couple wanting to visit the bedside of the previous attack’s victims. Near the Latin bridge, as the convoy stopped to allow its driver to make a turn, a young man caught up with the car, passed through the escort, pointed a pistol to the archduke and fired it three times.
Three simple little gunshots, shot with a small firearm. The first one hit the archduchess in the stomach, the second struck the archduke in the neck and the third, bouncing off the door of the carriage, struck the strange mare right in the heart.
The three of them clenched their wounds tightly as the people rushed to their aid and sized the gunman. The archduke and his wife were rushed in a panic state to the governor’s house, but it was no use; Franz Ferdinand and his wife died of their injuries a few minutes later.
The mysterious mare had been killed on the spot.
On that morning, the 28th of June 1914, it would only take three gunshots to set Europe ablaze and mire it its most formidable war yet. The blood shed by the deaths of Franz Ferdinand and his wife would be repaid by that of an entire continent. And by the blood shed by its leader Celestia, killed by accident in the attack, the Principality of Equestria would join in the macabre dance of the great european suicide.