Between

Between (more usually known as "Death")
Anime: Tsubasa Chronicle
Characters: Yuuko, Sakura, Syaoran, Kurogane, Fai

Sakura and her friends journey once more between worlds, bound together by a common cause, yet each on a separate quest. Will they ever revisit the world they are leaving? They may, but it will have changed, and therefore cannot be said to be quite the same world. What world are they going to? Not even Mokona, who is in charge of the transportation, could say.

Yet each character faces the future in his or her own way. Sakura, whose memories became wings and scattered to the winds, faces each new world with open eyes and a willing heart. Her memories, though she seeks them, do not weigh her down. Syaoran follows Sakura because he loves her, and that love allows him to face his future with courage. Kurogane, though the victim of a painful past, also faces his future without looking backwards because he knows that the only way to move on is to go forward. Only Fai looks backwards, unable to move beyond his past despite his cheerful pretense otherwise. He moves forward, it is true, but not so much towards something as away from it. Of all the group, the chains of his past weigh most heavily on him.

Watching over them as they travel is Yuuko, the Dimensional Witch. Her presence is a reminder that in all things there must be balance; When one wishes to make a change, something old must be given up to make way for something new.

*****

Card 13 in the tarot is usually called "Death", but I have chosen to rename it "Between" because this is really what it signifies - a transition between one state and another, made with deliberate intent. Sometimes one isn't even aware of making the choices that lead to change until the change starts to happen, then suddenly it is there and out in the open to see.

Make no mistake, however - change can be scary! Often we do not know quite what we are leaping into, and so we worry about whether we are doing the right thing or not. It is natural to look backwards at where we've been. But this card is all about motion, about moving from one thing to another or one state to another. We aren't quite what we used to be, but we don't know what we're going to turn into just yet. It can be very unsettling, especially to the people around us who might not have been expecting the change. But if you keep in mind that the important thing is to keep moving forward, chances are good that you will land on your feet - and even if you don't, the new scenery is bound to be interesting!

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"What's Yuuko doing here?", I hear you cry. "She isn't a death goddess or anything!" Well spotted, friend. I crave your indulgence.

This card turned out to be even harder than The Hanged Man to find a suitable series for. I thought I knew what anime I was going to use (Bleach), and then I realized that it simply didn't say what I wanted to say. There's no end of anime out there now that features Shinigami, Death gods, and all sorts of creepy, haunted entities...but none of them worked for me at all! After a while I realized that whatever series I used for this card, it probably wasn't going to have anything overtly to do with death. Problem was, that opened up the field of choices a LOT. Somehow I had a feeling that it was going to be something by CLAMP, but it took a year to finally peg down the one that was close to what I wanted to say about the concepts presented in card 13 of the tarot.

Still, the renamed title isn't quite exactly what I wanted it to say. For a while I was going to call the card "Transition", or "Transformation" but those words sounds more scholarly than evocative. The usual title, "Death", was clearly right out because it has twenty squijillion tons of baggage I didn't want to truck along. Honestly I don't think there's a single word in English that conveys in a nice, snappy way what I'd really like to say about this concept of scary-yet-exciting-change where you don't know what you're getting into but you know you can't stay where you were, either. "Between" is snappy, but it sounds a little more static than I'd like. This card is all about motion. If anybody knows of another word or no-more-than-three-word phrase that fits that description, please let me know!