"I wonder if that's curable."

"I'm not sure I'd like to be cured," Chess muses. "I'd be a different person, you see."

He shakes himself. "Have you decided which way to go yet?"

"I'll go look for the Hatter."

"Then you want - hm, that direction," he tells her, pointing a completely different way to where he first indicated. "Good luck."

He's beginning to fade away again, in stripes this time.

...well then. In that direction she goes.

And she walks through perfectly normal woods, meeting nobody and hearing nothing except the rustle of leaves and the trill of distant birdsong, until she comes upon a small house sitting all by itself in a clearing. 

The roof is in the vague shape of a hat, and handwritten signs in the windows advertise the prices of various items of headgear. 

Oh this must be it.

She walks up to the door and knocks.

"Just a minute!" calls a distant voice from inside the house.

And indeed, a minute later the door opens to reveal the first human-looking person Sadde has met since she arrived, unless one counts the helmeted guards. He's holding a teacup rather carelessly in one hand, and some of his tea sloshes over the brim as he moves.

"Good afternoon. How may I help you...miss?"

"I was told by a raven I should find you."

"Ah." He sighs. "A raven. Of course it was a raven."

The Hatter peers at her. "Do you know," he asks, in a perfectly serious tone, "why a raven is like a writing-desk?"

"I'm pretty sure it's not."

"Is that so?" He laughs. "That's one I haven't heard before. Come in, come in!"

He turns and heads back into the house, spilling more tea in the process.

She walks in, avoiding the spilt tea. "Are you quite certain you don't mind spilling all this tea?"

He seems to finally notice what's going on. "Ah, my tea! Thank you."

Inside, the house seems relatively normal, if old-fashioned, apart from the large and varied collection of hats hanging from everything that could conceivably hold one, stacked at least three deep on every flat surface, and piled in heaps on the floor. 

"I do apologise for the mess; it's my work, you see."

"Yes, I see," she says, smiling wryly.

Setting his tea down carefully on a clear patch of an end-table, the Hatter goes darting this way and that through the house. 

"Now where did I see... Ah, here we are!" 

He returns, triumphant, bearing a large, salmon-pink top hat. It's decorated with an oversized bow, a fluffy white feather, and, inexplicably, a peach. It's probably made of wax rather than actual fruit. 

He holds it above Sadde's head, experimentally. "What do you think?"

She sporfles. "Oh my god this is gorgeous I love it!"

"Excellent! It's yours." He drops it on her head; it's a little too big, and slides down to cover one eye. 

"Now then," he says, leaning in, "what did Everless tell you?"

She giggles. "I'm still not sure what the appropriate level of paranoia here is," she remarks, "but I dislike the Queen and there may or may not be a person who sometimes lives in the future and who may have suggested I'll become the new Queen."

The Hatter fakes a gasp. "Your Highness!" he exclaims in mock-horror, taking off his hat and sweeping it to the side as he bows.

He sets his hat firmly back on his head once he's upright, and returns to sobriety.

"If true, that would be the best news the Resistance has had in years. But how do you know this?"

"I asked Everless if there was some prophecy—because it was narratively fitting, you see—and she mentioned the Wandering Seer and observed that he couldn't decide whether you'd have a King or a Queen, after. I observed my gender identity is not consistent in time, which seems to explain stuff. Also I'm still more than half-convinced this is an incredibly elaborate dream of some sort, but still, who doesn't want to be Queen even if just in a dream?"

"That would explain a few things, yes. Narratively fitting?"

Before Sadde can answer, there's a loud tapping at the window. Everless is perched on the sill, and is tapping on the glass with her beak.

"Ah, there she is." The Hatter gets up and goes to let her in.

"Hello again, Everless. Bit of advice, next time you're leading someone somewhere, make sure they can actually keep up." And back to the Hatter: "Wonderland looks and acts a lot like it's fictional, so if someone's writing a story, I want to be the smart, sensible character the readers won't be frustrated with."

Everless ignores this, or at least chooses not to respond to it.

She hops through the window onto the Hatter's arm, and from there goes to perch on the back of a threadbare armchair. 

"An admirable goal. Has this method served you well so far?"

He rummages in a sideboard, and produces two teacups. "More tea?"