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.

Becoming the Slayer
During the prehistoric times 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. She was also revealed to be the strongest of all the Vampire Slayers, being that her connection to the Shadow demon was the closest, though Buffy Summers was able to defend herself when Sineya attacked her in a dream. However, these incredible supernatural powers came with a terrible price: she lost her humanity forever. She was a powerful yet pitiful instrument in the eternal fight against evil, a creature caught perpetually between sanity and madness.

Life and Death
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. It is said she killed the last Old One on Earth somewhere during this period. Eventually, she died and her powers passed on to a different girl. The Slayer line was born.

Encountering Buffy Summers
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 Rupert Giles, Willow Rosenberg and Xander Harris, 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 predecessor for her appearance and demeanor, 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.

Spirit Guide
When Buffy later sought help in defeating Glory, Sineya appeared to Buffy as a spirit guide and gave her two messages. First: encouraging her to love, telling her that her love would save the world. Second: telling Buffy the key to preventing the destruction of all creation: "Death is your gift." Wherein Buffy initially believed this was an allusion to her dark heritage, she soon came to realize that the First Slayer was in fact being quite literal, and that Buffy would need to sacrifice her life to save the universe.

Against the First
In 2003, Giles take the Potential Slayers on a trip to the desert to meet the First Slayer, apparently for that she give informations on the First Evil. Buffy encountered her for the third time in a dream a week later. 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.

The End of Magic


A few months after the end of magic, Sineya used a fairy to communicate with Buffy, telling her that the Scythe was the key to reversing the damage caused by the destruction of the Seed of Wonder and restoring magic to the Earth, but this task was not for Buffy, but for Willow.

Sineya next appeared in a vision to Billy Lane not long after magic returned to the world. As Billy is male, and not literally a Slayer, the Watcher Rupert Giles interpreted this as a sign that the rules of magic had changed, and that the First Slayer had accepted Billy as an ally.

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.
 * We bring the power of the Primeval One.

Behind the Scenes

 * She was portrayed by Sharon Ferguson.

Appearances

 * "Restless"
 * "Buffy vs. Dracula" (only in archive footage)
 * "Intervention"
 * "The Weight of the World" (only in archive footage)
 * "The Gift" (only in archive footage)
 * "The Killer in Me"
 * "Get It Done"
 * "Chosen"
 * "Damage"
 * Tales of the Slayers
 * Ready, Steady ...
 * Queen of the Slayers (noncanon)
 * Slayer, Interrupted
 * Apart (of Me), Part Three
 * Love vs. Life (only in a vision)