Written and produced by Shawn Fitzmaurice
Voiceover Nerd Productions, Inc.
© 2025 Voiceover Nerd Productions — All Rights Reserved.
Featuring
Kaelin Fitzmaurice as The Librarian
Shelly Fear as Mareen
https://www.voiceoverslayer.com/
Episode 5. No Paw Prints in the Warm Snow
COMING MARCH 2026
A tale of skies as empty as promises: voices resonating across the threads of time.
Written, performed, and produced by Shawn Fitzmaurice
voiceovernerd.com
Featuring
Kaelin Fitzmaurice as the Librarian
Shelly Fear as Mareen
voiceoverslayer.com
Dear Listener, fear not. A deep freeze may still a river’s surface, but in spring, it again becomes one with the undercurrent.
Chapter 17, ’Twas the Dream after Distress
A traditional children’s Solstice story, as read by Dad
’Twas a strange sort of waking that crept in so slow,
with a big stupid grin, like it wanted to show
him his limbs twisted up as they pulled into place
by gravity so strange, so unique to this place.
The air swirled with coffee and warm baking bread,
Aromas from home calling him from the bed,
But a little girl’s giggle unsettled the air
and wove itself tight with a new now and here.
And with consciousness came memory.
The fire burned hot, but the Stranger escaped,
and the things he had witnessed, traumatically scraped
into darkness with him, where the slumber he hated
consumed him so quickly as horror abated.
Sara, just Sara, her bright, steady hands
held odd-colored stones he could not understand.
With a shimmer of something (a skip in the light?),
they were two precious seconds ahead of the fight.
She then led them all toward that peculiar place
where the strangers would flicker when The Moment took place.
It was “sacred,” they said, though he doubted that claim,
’cause the Swillborn and Noc’Thule appeared there again.
She scrawled on her tablet with chalk and pig shit,
and the Moment field flickered and buckled and bit.
He would never forget how much she had cared
or her horror enshrined in a glance that they shared.
he woke as before, a quick moment, or more.
Maybe lifetimes had passed, but he chose to ignore it.
He’d wake up again with an axe to the skull,
and he’d take it again and again in withdrawal.
Both eyes he kept closed as he welcomed the blow,
for the axe to his skull he had long come to know.
And he wanted it there, for he couldn’t withstand
what he’d seen in that chaos: a Titan’s last stand.
Tephra was holding back so many foes,
some human, some pig-men, some smaller than those.
But her body was struck down. Devoured. Dismembered.
His heart split in two like his head.
He remembered
the times he had fought her, and loved her, and died.
And the love he had built must have shown in his eyes.
For the more that he fought her, the softer her face;
he felt almost remembered, through time, in this space.
Thousands and thousands of times, in this one space.
Chapter 18 — Cylinders in the Snow
A winter’s tale about the village that was no more.
As read by Mareen to little Sara
Once there was a village in a Hollow. It was shaped like a perfect circle, as if the world itself had traced it with the sharpest pencil it could find. A great circular wall rose impossibly high. It disappeared into soft, storybook clouds. The wall curved smooth and flat matte-black, keeping everything safe inside.
At the very center of the village stood a tower. It was black as the wall and perfectly round. A cylinder. It rose from the ground straight up into those same clouds. Some children liked to pretend there were princesses and dragons living there, but no one is there to pretend anymore.
Yes. it does sound like Gratch Hollow
There had been houses here. Warm windows. Chimneys. Doorsteps and doorways.
But not today.
Today, the chapel stands alone in its place. Its pitched roof and steeple are layered in soft, puffy white snow that looks hand-placed, like the careful arrangement of a Solstice village display.
Snowflakes fall slow and steady, perfect as a painting in motion, blanketing the ground as if to purify it. The smooth black wall plays an image on its surface of snow falling and falling, miles and miles beyond where the wall should end.
All the houses, roads, and people are gone, and in their place are row upon row of colorful cylinders lining the ground. So many different colors! Each is no taller than a child and no wider than a dog. Each sparkling with an iridescence all its own. Somebody set them up, every one is placed exactly where it belongs. And though snow falls everywhere around them, not a single flake would dare to land.
There is no wind. The air is comfortably warm. Yet the snow remains snow, pure and white; not like the ash that was settling when you escaped. No footsteps disturb the perfect white ground. Everything is exactly as it should be in an old storybook about Solstice, like the one we’re in now.
He waited some more, and he waited again.
He wanted that bloodthirsty scream to unhinge
such hatred, so young and naive, on his skull,
and the sweet sense of death, but his senses were dull.
But the strike never came and he never went back.
He’d never unsee Tephra’s gruesome attack.
Chapter 19 – How Stinky befriend Schlock
A holiday story written for Goreborn pigletts
Read allowed to school children visiting the MisArsesDolé cavern libraries beneath Bralith University of Mathmagics and Technomancy.
Reluctantly read aloud by Archivist Fr. Thed Crelith
Children! A great pleasure as always to gather as we do every year for our multi-cultural holiday story-time.
It seems this story was translated from Old SwillCode by Father J. Ack. Hac-At (Oh, I knew him) shortly before a large Goreborn Tuskari was kind enough to gore him through the back and out his chest. (the bastard probably deserved… oh)
Oh, (delight) and it says here…
His body was never recovered.
(smiles) Let’s begin children, shall we?.
Settle in, my little piggies. Every year on Solstice, we thank the sky for its shortest, darkest day. And every piglet in Phenem knows what happens that night—Shlock will come! And his friends Stinky and Rohk will come too! In the morning, your gardens will be piled high with beautiful filth and yummy rotten treats. And you will wallow all day long!
But do you know how it all started? How the human Shlock became friends with the Goreborn?
Cover yourselves in mud, little ones, and I will tell you.
Long ago—or maybe long from now—in a hidden Swillborn hollow, little Goreborn piglets wallowed beside squishy human cubs. Their parents allowed this as a lesson: that some humans, though very few, were worthy of mercy.
But humans, crush their little hearts, were always rude and insulting to us.
We once left them the finest gifts of our very own shit in their shoes, boots, and slippers. An honor for any Goreborn! But because humans are greedy, they insulted us by flinging our gifts out their windows. They expected more!
One night, Stinky—the too-tiny piglet with the stubby tusks—crept after Shlock, following him through the hollow.
He watched from the windowsills of their strange square houses as Shlock left dangerous little items for the cubs. Stinky was upset to see the cubs playing with sharp little bits of metal, glass, and wood disguised as horses, ploughs, and—to his horror—pigs! He saw them eating poison disguised as colorful stones!
But there was something worse. Something terrible that gave Stinky big feelings.
The cubs pulled tiny dead people and animals out of little coffins. The figures looked soft, wrapped in cloth. The cubs made the corpses dance and sing! They never put them down, afraid the tiny monsters might steal their eyes—or maybe their teeth.
But the humans weren’t frightened. They squealed! They laughed! They smashed their little corpses together, trying to knock off the heads. They hopped in circles and hugged each other tight. They sang little songs and shook the terrible gifts above their heads.
Then Stinky—Stinky the Too-Small Piglet, now Stinky the Too Smart—gasped.
“Oh! So that’s why they’re rude,” he whispered. “Crush their little hearts—
We don’t threaten them enough!
They like things that scare them—
but they would LOVE the kind we save for hunting and feasts!”
So that very night, Stinky gathered the finest threats in the hollow.
Fire-eyed boars, clever enough to outrun their own shadows.
Night-hounds who snapped at moonlight.
Swamp-wasps, furious in their cracked jar.
And Rohk, the village’s favorite Tuskari!
Rohk was the scariest, most threatening Goreborn Stinky had ever known! The elders said he held enough shit to keep any human delighted for an entire season.
Stinky waited until the following night to surprise the humans. He set out his gifts.
The boars snorted and raked their tusks against the doors.
The hounds howled at the windows.
The swamp-wasps simmered with excitement. Rohk the terrifyingly friendly Tuskari politely announced himself by knocking over a cottage wall.
When the humans awoke to see what was the matter, they screamed with the greatest delight Stinky had ever heard!
They ran! They leapt! They fled into the woods, shrieking gratitude, with their new threats chasing behind!
They were so overwhelmed with joy, they left us all of their weird square homes!
And in their loving rush to thank us, they left behind the richest gifts the Goreborn had ever received:
Heaps of their precious waste.
Pits full of glorious filth from every human in the village.
Sprawling tables and cabinets of rotting food.
Such kindness!
Such generosity!
A true Solstice blessing.
And now, Stinky the Too-Smart is a hero to the Goreborn! He left with Shlock, and Rohk went with them.
Shlock had been honored by the Goreborn to have a Tuskari always at his side,guiding his decisions.
He was The first Human to ever to be called Chosen by our People, and was delighted beyond measure.
And that is why Shlock travels all over Phenem every Solstice: to spread the same happiness he received that night. Stinky chooses the finest threats, and Rohk offers his booming Solstice greetings to kindly terrorize human cubs wherever they hide.
And Schlock has become so good and thankful that he comes again—this time only for the piggies—on the longest day of the year. When the sun has baked the food and shit into a gloriously rotten feast, Shlock brings these delightful treats to piglets everywhere.
He opened his eyes. And he could not believe, it!
‘Twas nothing like what he expected to be
on display in the Hollow, but wouldn’t you know?
Where the buildings once stood was now buried in snow.
With a silence so gentle it felt like a dream.
’Twas a gift for his eyes after all he had seen,
the snow was so perfect, like a Solstice display.
The air wasn’t cold, but snow fell anyway.
On the chapel’s roof it lay thick like white cotton,
as if crafted by artist he’d long since forgotten.
His memory was missing from times before this,
and he wished for them back like a new Solstice wish.
Chapter 20.The Girl with the Colorful Cats
A whimsical fairytale about a mischievous girl, her cats, and the teacher she locked in a treehouse
In a strange wintry hollow, the snow lies undisturbed—
even as a barefoot child comes bounding through. She is tiny—no older than five—filled with breathless certainty, as if she has been waiting for someone.
She is accompanied by three enormous cats, each as tall as a horse.
The smallest flutters above the group on soft, feathered wings. Smoky-gray, with faint glowing patterns in her fur, she drifts and circles as though the air itself holds her up.
Another strides beside the child, a lion, the color of electric orange sherbet, streaked with playful swirls of teal. His mane billows with glittering colors, shifting and sparkling in windless air.
The tallest of the three casts a shadow longer and darker than the others. She is sleek, her fur as black as Noc’Thule’s heart, yet it carries an emerald sheen, like moonlight caught in ink. Her sharp eyes remain on you, glowing with that same green energy. Her presence stretches long and quiet, as though the ground itself makes room for her.
“I thought you’d look different!” the child blurts, clapping her hands like tiny ringing bells. “Sister Tephra told me you’d be here!”
She spins in a small circle, arms thrown wide, words spilling faster than her mouth can hold. “Have you ever seen stars? I don’t remember if I have. Did you read Ilra’s book about stars? I made my own page! Or… maybe I will some day. It’s so hard to keep track!”
Then she leans close, whispering as though sharing a secret only you can hear. “I’m Sara. Want to see my drawings?”
And before you can answer she lights up—
“These are my kitties!”—-
The chapel remained, but the houses had gone,
And colorful cylinders had painted on
them childish paintings of windows and doors
and signs up for bakeries, businesses, stores
There were stick-figure pets and stick-figure parents
in a stick-figure house where it seemed quite apparent
that somebody wanted — or someone once did —
live an ordinary life like the other kids… did.
Once.
My ear drew my eye to the last standing tree,
a distance away, and not too hard to see.
A treehouse built high up, a perch or lookout —
and a voice calling down, resigned and worn out:
“Sara, come on… would you please let me out?”
And Sara leaned in with that devilish grin
and said to the Stranger,
“That’s Sister Tephra.
I locked her in the treehouse.”
She paused — as if waiting for him to ask why.
But when he just stood there, stunned and speechless,
she shrugged, and offered,
“…because I don’t want to finish my lessons today.”
