I dreamed about that geography, the stone spire behind us, the peak ahead, then another behind it, and how we headed to a village in the valley beneath while autumn flamed around us.  But in that dream we traveled with messages from the human world to a fairy village.  I borrowed the geology for this story because it worked so well to conceal the village till the sudden reveal. And then I felt stumped.

I had reached a point where I had no idea how to continue, and hoped for some dream to guide me.  I laid the writing aside and went to bed.  That's when I dreamed of the burnt farmer.  I saw him in vivid, scorched wild-eyed detail, smelled the scorch of him, with glimpses of the burnt stone and charcoal beams behind him, and the layers of smoke between us.  He didn't have to say anything, just stand there confronting me.  When I woke up I knew his story and all the rest unfolded.