Audrey stands a respectful distance away, though not so far as to risk losing him, and listens to him hum. If she can catch enough of the melody...

This may be made difficult by the fact that his singing, although it does now contain lyrics, is not especially melodic. His voice cracks and warbles, wandering around the tune unpredictably.

After a minute or so, he stops abruptly, whirling around with surprising speed to stare in Audrey's direction with a startled screech.

Audrey... hums. Idly, tunelessly, letting her voice wander and waver unsteadily, never quite sure of her own next note. She doesn't approach the Seer: she keeps her eyes downcast in deference, looking at his feet.

After a moment or two, he approaches, walking much straighter than he was before, and bows creakily.

"My lady," he says, looking over the top of her head, "may I have this dance?"

She nods, curtseys, and offers him her hand. She doesn't let her humming falter.

The Seer begins humming again as he takes her hand, the same tune as earlier.

Only, this time, a harmony emerges. Audrey's tune provides the other half of the puzzle, filling in the gaps that were missing before and which made it so hard to hear where the music was going.

They dance, the old man surprisingly graceful now he has a partner. His movements seem less nonsensical and more purposeful. He is still looking at the thin air just above Audrey's head.

She doesn't mind. No matter who the Seer sees, she's confident it's still a her. Etiquette dictates she follow his lead.

Everless watches, perching on a fallen stone to get a higher vantage point.

The dance continues, and, just on the edge of hearing, so faint it might be nothing more than the wind, strains of music accompany them.

Eventually, the music comes to a close. The Seer releases Audrey's hands and steps back, bowing as formally as if they were at a ball, and not alone on an empty heath.

She curtseys, and then- 

"Walker of the ways of time, I am come to ask our new-old question again."

"Ask," he tells her solemnly, "and I shall answer." It has the air of a ritual, of something repeated a hundred hundred times until it has meaning more in the repetition than in the action itself.

In the distance, carried on the wind, there is the sound of bells striking the hour.

"Seer, what should I hold to? When all times are as one, what endures?"

Slowly, and still with the air of a ritual - he is not speaking to Audrey, here and now, but to many versions of her across the past and the future - the Seer speaks.

"I can see the carven stone of the past, and the myriad silver webs of the future, laid out as clear as the road that runs to the palace gates. But I cannot see inside the hearts of men and women, to know what it is that drives one to continue, to strive, to grow."

For the first time, he lowers his gaze to meet Audrey's eyes. "What is it that drives you, my Lady Sophia? What is in your heart?"

She pauses a moment in thought. She has to get this right, yet it would be wrong to overthink it. So: a moment, no longer, then...

"I want that which I love to endure. I want the world to be safe and kind and just and true. I want to be something others can hold to, something sure beneath their feet, a ward against the world. I want to be strong for those who have nothing. I want, more than anything, to help. To make the world more its proper self, to make people more their proper selves, to heal the broken, the sick, the dying. I want..."

"...I want, I want, I want I want I want. I want so many things, and so few of them are within my grasp. We've said these words before, and we will again. Yet..."

She bows her head. 

"... so long as there's something left for me to change, something left broken or hurting or wrong, I will ask this question, a thousand times if need be."

She lifts her gaze to meet the Seer's again, blinking back tears. 

"When I am come again to ask of you, will you answer? Will you help me remember?"

"Always, my lady. Always."

He smiles as he meets her gaze, seeming for a long second to be perfectly sane and present in the moment. 

Then, his eyes unfocus, looking through Audrey at something that was or will be behind her, and he turns to limp away on some asynchronous errand. 

She watches him go, then turns to look around for Everless.

Everless is perched on the edge of a fallen dolmen, watching the Seer as he stumps off into the hazy distance.

"That," she comments, "is the sanest I have seen him act since..." 

She shakes herself.

"Do you have what you came for?"

"... I think so. And if that's not confirmation I used to be the Red Queen, I'm not sure what is."

"Yes," Everless agrees, "he did seem to recognise you as Queen Sophia. That, in itself, would not be conclusive, but in the course of that recognition he responded coherently to your actions, your speech and your questions," she observes.

"We have, I believe, reached a point at which the balance of probability is in favour of the hypothesis that you are indeed our missing Queen."

She nods. 

"... back to Hatter's house, then?"

"I believe so, yes."

She hops back onto Audrey's shoulder, landing as delicately as possible. The revelation that Audrey is in fact her rightful monarch does not appear to have altered her behaviour at all. 

"Do you still wish to be known by the name of Audrey, now that you are aware you were once called Sophia by your parents?"

"... I'll stay with Audrey. It fits me better. After all, I have no actual experience being queen."