"What's so preposterous about a cat being such close friends with a human? She seems to like her dear Dinah well enough." He stalked around the forest alone, not searching for anything in particular to hunt. Merely playing one of his cat-games as he thought aloud. A light grin played perpetually across his lips as the thoughts purred from his mouth. "Preposterous, indeed. She's so much like the Queen, it's almost silly. So pushy and assuming. Like she owns the world. I'll just push her out of my mind. Wherever that's gotten off too..." The cat giggled a little, his pace slowing slightly.
Soon, he'd stopped entirely, in front of the path to the Mock Turtle. His paws vanished; first went the solid black of his fur, followed by the smokey grey stripes. The disappearing act continued up his body, until all that was left were his eyes, glowing points of green in the darkness of the wood. Soon, those too were nowhere to be seen. A low growl could have been heard nearby, had there been anyone there to hear it.
On the roof of the Mad Hatter's home, the cat relaxed and watched the tea party below. The Hatter and the March Hare stared insanely at each other over the table, each holding a shattered cup of tea. The tea was shattered, that is, not the cups. The Doormouse rolled over in an empty cup, yawning and smiling in her sleep.
Everything had been quite different, after Alice's experience with the force that had corrupted Wonderland. It was a darker place. There was night now. Colors were more pale, while light and shadow more vivid. Even Cheshire himself had become miscolored into his – rather fashionable, in his opinion – monochrome stripes.
"Her dark imaginings nearly killed us all," the cat mused, "and still I stayed by her side. I've always been there for her. How could she abandon me, like this?" With a glance down, he pursed his lips a moment before regaining his trademark grin. "Us. Abandon us, of course. I talk as if I'm the only one here. Little Dory misses her, too." For a moment, the cat looked down at the sleeping mouse, sweet little thing, and ran his flat tongue delicately across one of his sharp fangs. She wasn't awake to admire him with so much as a tremble, and so he slumped his head down onto his crossed paws.
"If only I could see into the mouse's dreams. I'm sure I'd find some mention of the girl in there, somewhere. Perhaps even a nightmare of Dinah." His grin became an outright smile to himself as a quiet purr rose from the back of his throat. "What a lovely piece of art, that Dinah..." The smile faded into a look of surprise, which quickly replaced itself with that self-assured grin. "What am I talking about? Me and Dinah? She's never even been here. We'd have no common interests. At least with Alice I'd have some decent conversation. ... Gah! I thought I was supposed to stop thinking of her!" The Hatter and Hare didn't bother looking up at his voice, which at this point was unaccompanied by his body anyway. They simply continued staring at each other, and smiled a bit. Dory mumbled to herself in her sleep. No one payed attention to that, either.
The cat's voice found him sitting in the Crossroads Tree. "What is it about that girl? There's more than enough to keep me occupied here, isn't there?" He barely took a moment to remind himself of the answer, the very reason he'd gone stalking nothing instead of watching the denizens of the world. "No... I've seen everything. Been everywhere. Even Alice's world. Such people. Horrid beasts, those humans were. Treating my poor girl like a monster. Injecting her with their so-called medicines and observing her hell from behind their safety glass. Sickening."
With a sigh, he looked out along the glowing path that led away to nowhere and remembered the first time she'd asked him directions. Then he remembered the last time she asked him advice. "How long has it been?" The question could have been about his grin, which was remarkably vacant from his face. "Her absence is so strong, I can feel it. Like the darkness from before, but... within. She's a part of us. A part of this place. We're linked to her, well obviously. We've all been through so much, because of her twisted, splendid mind..."
After some moments of sorrowful pining, the cat stood and stamped a claw into the tree's bark. It yipped. "I want her back. I want her to accept me! But she'll never do that so long as I'm just another cat." He looked down at himself; his thin frame, lean muscles and long tail; his glossy black fur with the smokey grey stripes; his claws. "Only a human boy is good enough for Alice, is that right?" The cat began visualising a form in his mind. It changed and fluctuated, eventually becoming such a jumble that even he couldn't comprehend it. "Hm," came his voice from a space just in front of his now-abstract body, "Harder than I thought."
Then he saw them: the slits of a dozen pairs of glowing red eyes coming from the darkness in the woods. Two stepped out, albeit there was no longer a cat in the tree, or even in the area. The beasts we indescribable. Longer claws than the cat's, certainly. They sniffed around for a bit, before leaving. The other pairs of eyes left, with them, and the cat returned to the tree, once again no more than a very special cat. "Bandersnatches? Still running about, here? This isn't good at all." He vanished again.
The cat reappeared in the King of Hearts's private chamber. Red seemed to be the motif here. Red paintings on the walls, red carpet, red cushions, red sheets, red pillows. A king wearing a red robe, asleep in the bed. And a black cat, standing over him on the bed, grinning down at him.