Emberflame Ridge driftwood

he can't quite remember how he's gotten here — a forest, a place where the leaves fall like burning embers from autumn-touched trees and life rustles faintly in the background. their brilliant color tugs at his eyes almost painfully, nagging, telling him there is something he ought to remember. it must be so terribly important, but he does not recall — cannot recall, for the searing pain that blazes through his skull with each focused attempt.
he picks his way tentatively among the trees, pausing on occasion to test the scents in the air. his head spins a little, colors flashing momentarily, but the dizzy spell passes as something else catches his attention. a single charred tree, stark among the fiery hues of its brethren — and probably the single most confusing thing he has ever seen. the golden mayfair takes a few steps toward the blackened tree, brows drawn into a frown. his head tilts first one way, then the other, and then back, ears pulled forward; the rest of his body is perfectly still, even his tail. the only thought running through his mind is what the fuck?

Tack waggles his little tail behind himself as he flew up to a branch. He pecked at the branch as if looking for a beetle on it. Pecking over and over, at least until something made him stop. Something had moved down there, on the ground. At the base of a charred tree which Tack had just noticed himself. "What happened to tree?" he asked aloud.