When she was fifteen, Buffy became the Slayer. The one girl in all the world with the strength and power to battle the forces of Darkness. Destined to fight the demons and vampires and die young and alone.
When she was sixteen she finally understood what it meant to be The Slayer. Capital letters and everything. Sixteen was how old she was when she died. But she wasn't alone, and so she came back. When she came back, she was no longer the only girl. But one of two.
She was seventeen when she learned what it meant to be a hero. To sacrifice everything to stop the Darkness hidden in the face of someone she loved, but finding herself too late to stop it completely. Buffy died with Angel, banishing them both to Hell to save the world.
At eighteen she learned that not even the people who loved her could always be trusted; a lesson she thought she had already learned but hadn't quite remembered until it was her Watcher. She was eighteen the first time she lead an army against the demons she fought every day.
She met her predecessor for the first time when she was nineteen. The government couldn't be trusted and the First Slayer reminded her that even with her friends, The Slayer is always alone. Buffy was nineteen when she finally let herself use the capitol letters in her title; she was The Slayer.
She was twenty when she went to heaven. Never a question, not a doubt in her mind that death was her gift as she dove off the tower to protect her sister. Twenty was what she would stay after they tore her down and back into her coffin, into a prison of flesh and bone and sound and destiny that clawed it way out of the Earth, but stayed locked inside the Hell she'd been returned too.
She was twenty one when she decided to live again. Seeing that tantalizing bright flash of light, mixed with the burning pain in her chest Buffy clung tightly to the mortal coil until a veiny, dark version of her friend saved her. Held onto life even as she was forced to flash back to when she was seventeen and faced with the same choice. Twenty one when yellow crayons and a white knight stopped her from dropping into a new kind of Hell.
She'd been seventeen when she stopped being the Chosen One. At twenty two she built herself an army of slayers and lead them into battle. They managed to defeat the origin of Evil and seal it away for good. Now she was their General, her darker counterpart finally a true sister in arms even as she was reminded again that even with friends, The Slayer was always alone.
She was twenty five when her soul tore in two, Angel's final death punching her in the gut. She never got to say good bye, or tell him about how she'd been lying that night about her cookie dough, she just wanted him far far far away from the danger of the First Evil. Buffy never forgave her Watcher for denying her the chance to save him.
Buffy was twenty nine and still the leader of the slayers when the magic that built Dawn finally failed, and her sister faded away in a flash of green light. She hadn't felt so helpless since the Cruciamentum and her Watcher's first betrayal.
She was thirty when Faith died. Her sister slayer had died as she lived, fast and violently. Robin grieved with her, but her old friends saw it as a way to try and push their way back into her inner circle. When she said no, they sidelined her.
Buffy is thirty four now, looking for all the world like she's twenty and nothing more than a college student. In one hand is the Slayer Scythe, still hers for all of Kennedy's manipulations and schemes, and Mr. Pointy held tightly in the other, a reminder of her sister Slayers and not the proteges she sends to away to fight and die. In the back of her mind she can still feel the warm traces of a heaven she knows is now denied her, and with her eyes she sees the tall trenchcoated figure of an angel with stunning blue eyes and an inclination for Free Will; even if he was currently possessed by a demon nearly as sadistic as Angelus. She privately believes her own rebellion rubbed off on Castiel long before the Winchesters ever got to him. God stands below her, waiting for the Darkness. Buffy tenses as she feels Amara's power shift and change, coming closer and closer; God's power shifting and changing alongside him. A feral smile crossed her lips.
Buffy is the longest lived slayer in history. She saved the world a lot. She's thirty four and not nearly close to being done yet.
