"To be fair, I was mostly trying to figure out why there was a talking rabbit and where she was going. And I think I hardly count as an intruder, given that there was a hole in the middle of a street without any signs near it."

"Oh, I know that! But rules are rules as far as the Hearts are concerned." She winces a little at the word hearts. "You aren't supposed to be here, so you must be an intruder." This seems to make her terribly sad for some reason. 

"Will you tell me your name? Just in case - " She breaks off again and starts to sob. The ground is steadily approaching.

"—I'm Sadde Baldwin. Hey, what's wrong?"

"Oh, no, don't worry about me." The rabbit pulls a frilly handkerchief out of her apron pocket and blows her nose loudly. "We - we need to make sure the Queen's guards don't see you, which means you can't come with me." 

They are now getting quite close to the ground. Sadde's feet are just above the tops of the trees. 

"If you want to get home again, you'll need to ask the Raven, or maybe the Wandering Seer, to tell you the way. But I'm afraid I don't know where to look for either of them." She twists the handkerchief between her paws. "Oh, I'm so sorry to have landed you in this mess!"

"—yeah I think I might want to overthrow your Queen. Good luck with whatever?"

The rabbit stares at her in shock as they drift the last few metres to the ground. "...Um. You should be careful who you tell that to," she says at last. "I won't tell anyone! You should definitely talk to the Raven - I have to go now - good luck - goodbye!" 

As soon as her feet touch the floor, a few seconds after Sadde's, the little rabbit snaps her parasol shut and dashes off in the direction of the palace. 

And she is not squished by her velocity. Okay she'll just—not question it. Either she's dreaming or hallucinating very vividly, or she's in a magic land of some sort, and the response to all of these situations is the same: entertain the premise. She dusts herself and looks around.

She is in a forest! It's a very quiet forest, and the trees are big and close enough that they mostly block the view of anything beyond them. She's standing in something that only counts as a clearing in comparison to the rest.

There's no apparent indication of which way to go, other than the palace which can be faintly glimpsed through the trees. 

So she can go in a different way than that, how about.

"Raven? Is there a Raven here?"

Leaves rustling. Birds tweeting in the distance. Cat purring in the tree above her head. Sunlight peeking through the leaves from...somewhere. 

Nothing responds, including the guards that supposedly exist. 

Cat? She looks up.

There is a large ginger cat sitting on the branch of a tree, looking down at her. It meets her gaze solemnly, still purring. 

After a moment, it stands up and begins delicately picking its way to a different branch, around Sadde's eye level.

"...hello."

"Heellooo," says the cat, stretching out the word into a long purr. "I haven't seen you before. Are you new around these parts?" It seems to be smiling, in the way that some cats have.

"In a sense. Where I'm from most cats don't talk. Most rabbits don't, either."

It pads closer. "Maybe you weren't listening," it suggests. "Or it might just be that they don't talk to you." The last word turns into a yawn, accompanied by a full-body stretch. The branch bobs up and down with the motion. 

"—no, I'm pretty sure they're, like, unable to talk."

"Suit yourself." The talking cat settles itself back down on the branch, tail-tip waving slightly. 

"Where are you going?"

"Somewhere other than the palace. The rabbit mentioned I should look for the Raven or the Wandering Seer, so I'm looking."

"Well, if you want the Raven, you should go that way," says the cat, waving a paw, "or if you want the Wandering Seer, you should go...hm, that way." Other paw.

Neither direction is towards the palace; in fact, they both seem to be pointed slightly away from it. Other than that, they're almost completely opposite directions. 

"Well the rabbit did suggest Raven twice. What's your name, by the way?"

The cat is silent for a few seconds, sitting motionless except for the agitated lashing of its tail. "I don't know," it says at last. "You can call me the Cheshire Cat. There's only one of those in Wonderland, so no-one will be confused by it."

"If you're going to see Everless, I might see you there," it continues. "Then again, you might not see me..." The last sentence drifts off into nothing as the Cheshire Cat itself slowly vanishes, starting with its tail and ending with its eyes. The latter stay hanging in the air for a full second after the rest of the cat has disappeared, then blink and vanish.

Okay whatever. Raven-wards.

The forest in this direction seems pretty much the same as where she started, at first. After a few minutes of walking, though, there is very definitely a path under her feet, pointing in the direction she wants to go.

A few minutes later, it splits in two. At the fork, there is a signpost. One arm, pointing in a direction that is probably towards the castle, says "This way!" and the other, pointing down the second path, says "That way!"

That way it is.