Sineya

"I have no speech. No name. I live in the action of death, the blood cry, the penetrating wound. I am destruction. Absolute ... alone."

- Sineya

Sineya, more commonly known as The First Slayer, was the first in the line of Slayers. She was portrayed by Sharon Ferguson.

Biography


Sineya was chosen by three powerful African shamans - the Shadow Men - to fight against the forces of darkness. They chained her to the floor of a cave, and imbued her with the heart, soul and spirit of a powerful demon known as the Shadow demon. The First Slayer was created. She had superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, agility, a predator instinct, superior healing factor and a psychological link which she could use to project herself into the dreams and visions of her successors. However, these incredible supernatural powers came with a terrible price: she lost her humanity forever. She was a powerful yet pitiful creature caught perpetually between sanity and madness.

Guided by her instincts, and armed with her superhuman powers, Sineya hunted and killed vampires and demons, but the very people of her village, whom she protected, mistook her for a demon, and expelled her. The Shadow Men failed to find her, and hence she never had a Watcher. Shunned everywhere she went, Sineya became some sort of a recluse, led completely by her insatiable thirst for the kill. Eventually, she died and her powers passed on to a different girl. The Slayer line was born.

Thousands of years later, the Scooby Gang used the Enjoining spell to invoke Sineya's spirit to defeat the near-invincible Adam. She considered this an offense, as she firmly believed that the Slayer should and must operate alone. Using what appeared to be an apparition of Tara Maclay to speak for her, she invaded the dreams of the Gang to punish them. While she was successful in killing Giles, Willow and Xander, she was bested by the current Slayer of that era, Buffy, who realized that it was but a mere dream, and she could stop the fight by waking up. Before she did, however, she mocked her ancestor for her stubbornness and her disheveled, savage, utterly inhuman appearance, and promptly rejected Sineya's insistence that she work alone. It was then that Sineya realized that she was defeated and vanished from the dreams, permitting the four of them to wake up, but not before leaving a cryptic message to Buffy, which foreshadowed the arrival of the Hell-Goddess, Glorificus, who would quickly become the most dangerous enemy Buffy had ever encountered, second only to the First Evil: "You think you know. What's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun." As a result of this encounter, Buffy became more accepting of her role as the Slayer, and began to willingly study her power and history.

Later on, she appeared to Buffy as a spirit, and apart from encouraging her to love, gave her a message that turned out to be the key in Buffy saving the universe from ultimate destruction: "Death is your gift". In the episode Get It Done, Buffy encountered her for the third time in a dream. This time, Sineya's message was "It is not enough". Buffy later learned that it meant her powers were not enough to combat the First Evil, and that she had to get more power to win - ultimately leading to her sharing her Slayer powers with her army of Potential Slayers in the final battle against the Turok-Han vampires.

Spell to invoke Sineya
Sha me-en-den.

Gesh-toog me-en-den.

Zee me-en-den.

Oo-khush-ta me-ool-lee-a

ba-ab-tum-mu-de-en.

Translation:

We are heart.

We are mind.

We are spirit.

From the raging storm

We bring the power of the Primeval One.

Appearances in the Buffyverse

 * She first appears in the episode "Restless" (see above).
 * The Buffy episode, "Get It Done", reveals her origins (see above).
 * In the graphic novel, Tales of the Slayers, the First Slayer is asked to leave the village that created her. They fear her.
 * In "Intervention", the First Slayer appears to Buffy as a "spirit guide", giving her the advice that "death is [her] gift".
 * The First Slayer also appears in the beginning of "Get It Done", telling Buffy that "it is not enough". Buffy later learns she means her power is not enough, and she must get more power from the Shadow-Men.
 * She appeared in the comic mini-series Fray Issue #3 : "Ready, Steady..." (August 2001).
 * In the non-canon Queen of the Slayers, the First Slayer is named as Senaya, which sounds similar to the name Sineya, mentioned in the enjoining spell performed by Willow, Giles and Xander in "Primeval".