Finally, chapter 6!
I've teamed up with greysfanhp, the very best beta I could ever have wished for. Yes, you're brilliant.
Revising this thing two times (and indulging in disproportionate amounts of research) obviously took some time... but here we are.

Into Present Bygone

She had barred the door and taken off the ancient scribe's attire, carefully laying it out on her bedroll as not to crumple or risk staining it in any way by doing what she was about to do. Her eyes were bloodshot and her face still ashen, yet her unharmed hand had almost been caressing the age old silken textiles, her fingers tracing the patterns on the cool, smooth surface.

The worn fabric of her headrest, still damp from the leaking roof, put up little resistance as she methodically tore it to strips of cloth, to bandage the hand that had been cut open anew by her instinctive attempt to save the green dragon carafe. She then set to work on cleaning up after herself around the little table; having soiled the floor with the contents of her stomach and the blood dripping from her wound; trying and mostly failing to keep herself from gagging while wiping up the remainder of her first conscious encounter with the traditions of the Sun Queen's stormguard.

Tossing the little heap of soiled cloth into the corner she turned toward the shattered pieces of glassware with a deep sigh. She carefully picked up the large shard that had bit into her palm, the dragon's jaw still smeared with dried dark blood. Closing her eyes she turned the fragment in her hands, exploring the texture on the in- and outside. There was a faint moist sheen to her eyes as she opened them again, combined with an angry glow as she analysed the piece in a quiet voice full of self-reproach.

'Sassanian glassware from pre-Islam Persia… exported to southern China during the Jin Dynasty on the desert routes… probably re-exported via Yangzhou on the eastern coast to Japan from where it then found its way here. Fifteen hundred years and six thousand miles… smashed because of an archaeology graduate's culture shock…'

She shuddered fiercely, trying to suppress another retch with gritted teeth until she finally clenched her fist hard, the fingernails digging into the bandaged palm of her wounded hand with sufficient force to make her cry out in pain; killing the gag reflex. Her sore throat and ragged breath made the words come out like a growl.

'Dammit Lara! Having eaten a part of… what- or who…ever is not going to kill you… so pull yourself together!'

After slowly rubbing her temples and drawing her hands down her face she gingerly collected the shards of the carafe with still slightly shaky movements and placed them on the table, neatly lined up next to each other. Looking down at her little museum layout she straightened up and folded her hands in her lap as she tilted her head backwards, inhaling deeply while closing her eyes before she softly addressed her best friend.

'No… it's not going to kill you. It's always others who get to die instead, isn't it? Sam… I'm so sorry.'

A tear fell from her cheek unto her chest where it followed the line of a scar left by a deep machete cut that had come within half an inch of hacking off her right arm had she not ducked away a split second before it connected fully.

'Sorry… what a cheap word. But you know I've never been good with words… but I've always been good with promises. I've only ever broken one… and that was the only one that ever really mattered.'

Slowly bending forward she covered her face with her hands, a lone, naked figure kneeling before a little altar of shards.

'And yet here I am, grieving about a piece of glassware… as if that was important. As if anything was important anymore…'

With a silent sob racking her shoulders she clenched her fists and drove them hard into the floorboards, breaking the skin on her knuckles in several places where the frostbites from the Ziggurat had barely healed. The little finger on her right hand, still stiff from when a heavy boot had stomped on it, gave a crunching sound upon impact, making her yelp in pain and curse herself.

'You'd probably laugh at me right now… and ask me who I'm trying to fool, wouldn't you? And you'd be right. I've met the historical figure on which I spent the better part of two years of studying at UCL in person! And proceeded to affront her in the worst possible way and I care! And this isn't helping anyone at all!You'd find it "totally adorable" I guess… if you were still here and not just… your body.'

As her breathing calmed again, she wrapped her arms around herself and slowly rocked back and forth, a few salty drops staining the ancient floorboards.

'I don't know how much longer I can take this Sam… but I'll make you another promise: if there is any way to bring you back, I swear I'll find it. And I won't care about the price.'

With a deep sigh, she stilled, the ghost of a smile flickering over her face that was wet with tears.

'I never told you… but you were a terribly brave soul when watching the world through your camera. As if nothing that happened on that little screen could have any impact on you. You'd be the only one who understood that I need to understand all this. I have to. And knowing you… you'd probably want to film it the whole way.'

There was a sad glint in her reddened eyes as she opened them again and wiped away the moisture with her hands before nodding slowly to herself.

Standing up, a dim reflection caught in the corner of her eye, making her look back and notice a faint silky sheen where the bloodstains from the cut to her hand had been before she had cleaned up. The spots were smooth to the touch of her index finger; and kneeling down again in curiosity she noticed the colour did not resemble dried blood but lacquered pine. Several layers of lacquer at that, worn but intact as opposed to the dry dust and crumbling wood fibres clinging to her fingertips after tentatively scraping at the nearby floor.

She blew away the dust on another patch close by but found nothing notable on closer inspection. Tilting her head, she looked back and forth between her bruised hands and the floor before bringing her right hand's weakly bleeding knuckles into contact with the spot she had cleared, watching closely as the dry surface absorbed the red liquid. Nothing happened.

She shook her head vigorously and slowly got up, tucking a strand of hair hanging over her forehead behind her ear before she turned to look out the window with furrowed brows and deeply tired eyes. Judging by the length of the shadows it had to be close to noon, the by now almost still air warming up considerably compared to the chilly morning with the humidity approaching uncomfortable levels as the downpour's moisture evaporated from the leaf surfaces.

Looking down at the faded scribe's attire with its intricate orange yellow pattern of feathers and pine branches on a dull red tunic that lay on her bedroll together with the breeches of raw silk, she shook her head before pursing her lips pensively, taking a deep breath and firmly addressing the empty room.

'Alright. Time to play by the rules.'

The clothes almost fit as if they had been made for her; and she found a string of narrowly braided leather strips and a long orange piece of silk in the low cut boots, providing her with a means of tying a ponytail as well as a belt around her midriff to keep the loosely cut tunic close to the body.

Having carefully adjusted her attire she looked down at herself, the corners of her mouth lifting in a hint of a smile. She nodded resolutely and squared her shoulders before she unbarred the door and stepped out into the hall, turning around and pausing for a moment as she looked back at the open window with its missing grating one last time. She purposefully pulled the door shut, the wooden thud quickly hushing in the silent hall.

As she slowly walked across the hall, taking in the remains of the intricate paintings on the walls and ceiling in their washed out colours combined with dulled remnants of gold leaf, fine beads of sweat began to form on her forehead. The air in the ancient building was stuffy despite it being open on all sides; soon she could feel drops of sweat trickling down her back and legs, unhindered by the loose fitting clothing that cooled her still aching body. On the far side of the hall a servant entered from a corridor, startling her from her hazy state of mind; but he exited into another hallway without making any sound or even acknowledging her presence.

Her footsteps sounded muffled as she entered a northwards corridor, the building seemingly absorbing most of the ambient noise in the ancient, porous materials that had lost all lustre they might have once had, making reflections almost non-existent and filling the interior with soft and entirely diffuse light that wiped out most of the shadows without providing any highlights for the eye to cling to. Nothing moved, and she found herself looking over her shoulder every now and then, but the cracked wooden panelling and the empty-eyed statues lining the walls stayed silent.

Sunlight fell through a hole in the ceiling further down the passage where a rotten roof beam had recently yielded to the weight of the overgrown stone tiles, scattering debris and moss over several yards and making some badly worn floorboards cave in. Dust particles danced in the dazzlingly bright beams of light, the air smelling damp and musty as the floor, having soaked up the rainwater like a sponge, turned soft and slippery.

After carefully ducking under the debris as to avoid any stains on her clothes, her footsteps making soft squelching noises in the process; she reached a stairway leading downwards, faint sounds of activity drifting through the still air. She stopped, waiting a few moments with baited breath before moving further on around a corner where she spotted a small group of servants clearing debris from two otherwise completely empty rooms; one of them standing forlornly with a broom in his hands that was missing half of its original width.
They all stopped working as she approached, not taking her eyes off them for a second. They inclined their heads and bowed slightly as she cautiously passed them, none of them uttering a single word; total silence falling on the scene until she was well away, walking faster now and continuously looking back and forth.

The corridor changed into an arcaded walkway that overlooked an open forecourt, angling off towards a diamond shaped entrance hall where she almost ran into a pair of silent, motionless guards standing sentinel in front of a crumbling, reddish brown archway to the right as she had been distracted by the carvings on the wooden pillars she had caressed with her fingertips while passing by.
Apart from turning their heads slightly in her direction as she all but recoiled in alarm, they did not react to her appearance in any way, staying completely silent and almost immediately taking up their previous stance again, resembling lifelike statues more than living beings that, she knew, could bleed and feel pain.

Watching them askance while passing them in a wide arch she noticed a flight of double stairs behind them, leading upwards into silent twilight. Giving the stairway a short glance she continued in the direction she had been moving, her gait resembling a caged animal's with an ever so slight limp, until she reached another set of stairs, this time leading down and made of stone so worn it had taken on a shiny quality on the grooved steps.
She suspiciously eyed the mossy archway made of stone slabs at the bottom of the stairwell, hesitating and taking a few steps in the direction she had come. Giving the door of the diamond hall with its two stormguards an unhappy look and unconsciously feeling for a weapon at her silken belt, she turned around again with a sigh and headed down the stairs, wincing when her right knee had to take her weight on the slanted steps.
The sound of tools and crockery greeted her at the bottom as she walked through the archway that lead into an airy and light filled space.

Dozens of servants were working on turning a small mountain of foodstuffs one could gather in the wilds of Yamatai into preserves, the smell of the smokehouse overlaying everything else. Long lines of mushrooms, fruit and fish hung out to dry filled the spaces between the roof beams, recently killed and gutted deer were piled upon each other along the northern wall, the blood still dripping from the carcasses and staining the stone floor.
No one spoke, the only sounds coming from pottery being moved about, knifes on chopping boards and the multiple blazing fireplaces. All activity ceased as she walked in, a dozen pairs of sunken eyes following her from inclined heads, in silence. Almost simultaneously, they bowed slightly as she turned through a full circle, trying and failing to make eye contact with any of them. Her voice was hoarse.

'Hello? Can you help me?'

Silence.

'How can this place be full of people? Where did you all come from?'

Silence.

'Does anybody understand me?'

Silence.

'Shit! What is this place?'

Her eyes darting across the workspace she fixed upon a double door and turned towards it, stumbling on the uneven floor with a sharp intake of breath, gripping her right knee for a moment before hastily limping towards it.

Breathing heavily, she stopped dead when she became aware of two stormguards standing on either side of the small gate that turned the gaze of their demon masks towards her in a barely noticeable movement while resting their gloved hands on the hilts of their swords.

Clenching and unclenching her fists while slowly backing away and looking around unsteadily she caught sight of many more figures through the weathered window openings, working in silence on the outer side of the walls, clearing ancient terraced rice paddies extending further upward the mountainside, the terrain much gentler on this side of the palace than on the southern approach. This had to be the outer wall at the northern gate.
As she retreated, the guards took up their stoic position again; a second later she spun on her heels and all but fled the place. Shortly after, the servants took up their tasks again as if they never had been disturbed.

Tracing back her way she encountered a lone servant and hailed the woman who turned around hurriedly and backed away a step upon being spoken to. She had the looks of a pale twenty year old at first glance but the way she held her body and how her almost translucent skin seemed to stretch over her cheekbones belied the appearance. Lara approached her carefully, pronouncing the syllables of her modern Japanese as clearly as possible.

'Please, I need to find the study overlooking the southern approach. Can you help me?'

The maid's wide eyes darted back and forth as she backed away a little more against the wall, her ashen face showing fear and bewilderment as she dropped her gaze to the floor. Lara took a half step back herself, gripping the bridge of her nose with thumb and index finger and exhaling softly before trying once more with a simpler approach.

'Queen Himiko, where?'

The woman jumped, briefly touching her throat with a soft whimper and quickly after pointing in the direction of the guarded archway in the diamond room Lara had come through earlier, then bowed as deeply as possible, remaining in the position.
Lara looked down at the obsequious figure with a mixture of disgust and pity in her eyes, unconsciously retreating a slow step while taking in the black but brittle hair flowing over a pale neck where the veins stood out in a dark reddish blue in stark contrast to the pale skin and featureless, washed out clothing, before leaving the desolate creature behind with a soft shake of her head and pacing back the arcaded walkway again.

She adjusted her attire once more and checked her ponytail for any loose strands of hair before approaching the arch with measured yet tense steps as she tried to hide her limp; constantly eyeing both of the guards. Having bowed respectfully, earning her an accepting nod from the black clad warriors, she drew an unsteady breath and passed between them. A metallic sound made her spin around two steps into the stairway with her hand instantly pulling the non-existent pistol from her hip, cursing under her breath.

The guards had crossed their pole arms in front of the entrance, blocking the way back as effectively as any portcullis.

Dust, sparkling in a ray of light, was drifting down from a higher level as she warily made her way up the creaking steps that ended on a raised walkway which encircled the staircase, leading to several closed doors to every side of the building.

Faded, threadbare tapestries covered the walls above the walkway, their lower edges crumbling as she curiously grazed them with her fingertips while walking down the walkway, scolding herself immediately after her thoughtlessness as she remembered Liz, her professor of archaeological conservation at UCL, and what she would had said to this. Looking up at the tapestries she quietly spoke to herself.

'These have to have been made over a thousand years ago… Nothing of organic origin should ever be able to last that long without any conservation measures… they should be less than dust by now. But so should all these wooden buildings… you'd expect to find overgrown foundations in a place like this… nothing more…'

She leaned against the banister with her shoulders slumped, covering her eyes with a hand as her head tilted forwards, a pained and unsteady sigh escaping her chest. As the handrail gave an ominous creak, followed by the clatter of wooden fragments, she forced herself upright again with a strained moan and once more looked up at the scenes before her that once had to have been extremely colourful.
They showed bountiful harvests under the sun on one side and victories on the fields of battle on the other; the latter consistently containing a swordsman clad in blue and gold, clearly of noble birth, always wearing the exact same outfit although his facial features changed with every depiction.

'I know you…' she said 'You're still wearing those robes back in that tomb where you chose to commit seppuku for your failure. Jūmonji giri even… four cuts and without a trusted swordsman to release you from your torture, bleeding to death alone… Was your suffering great enough to restore your honour? All these generals… are they your predecessors or were they all you as well? You knew her secret… so she would know yours, I guess…'

Walking back to the stair head she came to a halt before an open double door, its frame reddish brown and the panels a yellowed white, crested by a wooden carving of the rising sun with the cracked surface also showing the remains of leaf gilding, leading into a dimly lit passageway at the end of which bright light was spilling through another opening. Her steps gradually slowed as she headed down the corridor, glittering dust particles illuminated by the back light flowing through her field of vision and disappearing in the murky corridor behind her.

Stopping two paces from the doorway and squinting into the brightness, she could barely make out the figure of Himiko standing at the parapet and facing the southern horizon.
The sky, of a pale hazy white, glistened in the powerful light of the early afternoon and together with the direct sunshine bathed the study's whitewashed walls and floor in almost painful luminance.
The queen's silken robes shone in reflections of blindingly white radiance, the once faded applications on her garments standing out in darkest ebony and powerful pure gold and crimson. Her crown shimmered with a fire like glow, the hairbands wafting in the wind resembling wisps of white smoke.

Lara's breath hitched for a second as she beheld the sight before she began to mumble frantically to herself in a barely audible hiss.

'Shit! How do I address something like that? …Allright. Show respect… how deep to bow… keirei? No way, might as well mock her… saikeirei? Is that enough for the Sun Queen? …Dammit! Why do they only teach you modern etiquette when all you need is something from two thousand years ago! Like in those old Samurai movies Sam loved to dissect… was that fiction or the real deal which you weren't supposed to do nowadays because it shows self-hate…? Perfect then. Dogeza, wasn't it? Damn! These are male clothes… male or female hand position?! Best to go with the outfit, right? Ok, I can do this. Male scribe who has just burned down the royal archives… that should do it. Oh god… don't screw this up any further than you already have…'

She wiped sweat from her brow before drawing her hands down her face and placing them firmly at her sides after adjusting her attire a final time; waiting for the right moment to make her presence known.

Himiko was holding her right hand before her, slowly turning it back and forth and watching the sunlight play over her skin, outlining the fine hairs and illuminating the backside of her fingers in a soft red glow. Turning her face into the westerly breeze she closed her eyes, shuddering ever so slightly as the wind played with a strand of hair that had come loose from her elaborate headdress.
Almost dreamily, she addressed her visitor without turning around.

'The longer I live, the more beautiful life becomes... how I could have forgotten the warmth of the sun and the caress of the wind, craving only to be… and not to live.
The temple of our bodies falls to ruin as the years consume it and power always fails the test of time… everything transitory is but an image that will fade… but life… life is eternal beauty that shines brighter than everything we could ever hope to create or achieve and yet we always forget this simplest of all truths.
Simple, powerless life is of sparkling beauty like the dragonfly darting back and forth over smooth waters that reflect the endless skies, asking nothing of life but life and making perfect sense in its simplicity.
Yet power without life sees no other sense than power for power's sake, consuming itself in its raging search for more of itself; like the storm unleashing untamed fury that further builds its all-consuming rage from rainstorm to thunderstorm to typhoon… leaving nothing behind but a lingering hate for the next sunrise that will turn the destruction wrought into a source of life and beauty anew.'

After a few moments of expectant silence, Lara nodded to herself and, drawing a deep breath, moved into the hazy whiteness, keeping her gaze to the floor.

'Her Majesty wishes to see me?'

When the queen's eyes came to rest upon her, the daughter of Lord Croft, educated in English etiquette since the age of five, let herself sink down into a kneeling sit with her hands still firmly at her side, proceeding to bow from the hip in a near fluent motion until her forehead almost touched the floor and her ponytail slid down from her neck. Her voice was unwavering albeit strained and with a hint of pain due to the position putting pressure on her still tender ribcage. There was also more than just a trace of embarrassment at grovelling in such a way at the feet of ancient Yamatai's empress that she did her best to hide.

'I offer my apologies for my breach of courteousness when I rejected the honour of having received the proper warrior's treatment. It was never my intention to insult Your Majesty or the traditions of your house and I would ask your forgiveness and express my wish to learn from you.'

Himiko paused, her eyebrows rising slightly as she regarded the prone form at her feet, after which the hint of a smile began to tug at what had otherwise been the emotionless mask of her face.

'I shall grant you the forgiveness you seek and will regard your wish with favour. You may rise, Lara.'

On hearing the softness return to the Sun Queen's voice, who obviously had interpreted her awkwardness in a very different way, Lara smiled a fleeting, relieved smile at the floorboards before performing the bow in reverse, suppressing a groan as the pressure left her hurting chest. As she straightened up she noticed Himiko inclining her head slightly towards her, expertly returning to the fully upright position simultaneously to herself as demanded by etiquette.