Twilight Gatekeeper – Fox Guardian of the Western Edge of the Woodland Realm.

Art by Karie-Ann Cooper Author

Meet Twilight Gatekeeper, the fox who guards the West. He bends paths and erases memory to protect the forest from destruction and guide good spirits.

Beneath the dusk-thick canopy and wind-worn ridges of the Forest of Dean, the fox walks—not as a wanderer, but as the Twilight Gatekeeper. His paws trace thresholds. His ember-lit eyes hold the last flicker of memory before night takes hold.

He does not dwell in a den. He inhabits a boundary.

Behind him rises Far Hearkening Rock—a listening stone older than kings and roads. Once used by gamekeepers, Romans, and Druids, it now belongs to the fox. He curls beneath its curve at twilight, where the land exhales and the Hollowing begins.

The Hollowing does not strike. It seeps.
It unthreads the weave between place and purpose.
But the Gatekeeper resists.

When The Hollowing stirs, the forest shifts.
Paths twist. Moss thickens. Trees lean close. Mist curls low.

Those who come with harm forget why they came.
They wander. They turn in circles. They forget their names.

But those who come gently—curious, careful, kind—are met by lantern orbs.
Little lights, flickering in time with the forest’s breath, guiding the gentle ones through.

He covers paths with mossy roots and leans the trees together, sealing the woodland from the Hollowing’s reach. But when the forest calls, he parts the roots and straightens the trees. Lantern orbs rise from the soil, revealing safe passage.

He does not punish.
He protects.
He remembers.

He is the western Guardian of the Woodland Realm.
And though the other Foxes of the Compass remain hidden, he holds the West—for now.

Let the Hollowing come.
The fox will walk deeper.

Categories: : folk and lore, fox, woodland realm