Pilot

**Pilot** is the short pilot episode that is used in a promotional trailer for the animated series, *Sissi: The Young Empress*.

## Plot

In the part of the forest in Vienna, Austria, a fawn along with the little birds and butterflies comes to Sissi, a beautiful, strong and independent young girl who is sitting in the grassy field along with her animal companion, a playful and energetic orange dog named Shadow. She pets the deer and then he licks her face and with that, they're running through the path to her father, Duke Max's horse farm with Flick, her pet horse and his other steed which he is cleaning him.

Meanwhile at Possi Castle's kitchen, Sissi's eldest sister, Nenè and her three children, Mary, Sofia and Spatz are preparing a cake and then she puts it in the oven until Duchess Louise, her loving mother comes to the room and asks Sissi to come with her to show her that something exciting is about to happen. In the living room with her and Louise, Nenè receives and invitation with an envelope to meet Franz, Sissi's kind and noble love interest at the Schönbrunn Palace and she smiles happily.

When they have arrived at the palace with the carriage holding Nenè and Sissi in their elegant dresses along with Flick and Max's steed, they come to the ballroom with Franz and his stern and strict mother, Archduchess Sofia. First, Nenè meets him with a gracious bow and a precious smile that comes in her face and then he excitedly spots Sissi which he chooses to date her.

That night at the palace gardens, Franz and Sissi are walking and he picks a pretty and beautiful pink rose to give it to her which she smells it and tells her that it is a pleasure of living at the palace. After that, they both give a very first sweet, lovely and graceful hug with a cream-yellow moon appearing on the star-lit sky.

The next day, back at the Schönbrunn Palace, in the living room, Franz get into a conversation with Sofia that he wants to marry Sissi instead of Nenè, which made her sister sad and Duchess Louise very upset and both of each other very angry indeed. Also, in the part of the woods, both are riding with Flick and Pegasus, his white pet horse in the forest.

Later, in the palace's ballroom, Max, Louise, Ludwig, Nenè and Sofia watches them dance with Sissi's beautiful bow dress and then she runs outside along with the birds and butterflies, plus a magnificent rainbow appears in the sky.

## Characters

2. Franz
3. Shadow
4. Duke Max
5. Louise
6. Nenè
7. Ludwig
8. Sofia
9. Flick
10. Spatz
11. Sofia
12. Mary
13. Fawn
14. Pegasus

## Notes

* This short runs approximately 2 minutes and 40 seconds.
* Nut, Theodore, Ludwig Wilhelm and Mapperl does not appear in the pilot until the first episode, *A Revealing Dream*, in the first season of the series.
* At the ballroom of the Schönbrunn Palace, Ludwig's first design (alongside Nenè) appeared with light tan brown hair, thick eyebrows and a goatee only in the pilot until his hair and thick eyebrow color was currently changed to normal brown and his goatee was gone in the first episode, *A Revealing Dream*, in the first season of the series.
* The early logo appeared at the end of the pilot episode from it's early products until it was currently changed for the entire series.