🌼Landas and the Thousand Paths of Mindoro 🌼

Landas and the Mountain Without Paths

A story for Zander Miles

On the misty mountains of Mindoro, where the morning clouds wrapped themselves around ancient forests, lived a young tamaraw named Landas.

His name meant "path."

Everyone thought it was a strange name.

"What kind of name is Path?" the other calves would giggle. "A path is not something you are. It is only something you walk on."

Landas often wondered the same thing.

He belonged to one of the oldest tamaraw families on the mountain. His grandparents, uncles, aunts and dozens of cousins all lived across the grassy slopes. At every family gathering, there seemed to be another cousin who was known for something special.

There was Lakas, whose horns were already the strongest.

Bilis could race up the steepest hills before anyone else.

Tibay never grew tired, no matter how far the herd travelled.

Bantay was always the first to notice danger.

Whenever visitors came, they smiled.

"What an extraordinary family!"

They pointed at each cousin.

"The strongest."

"The fastest."

"The bravest."

"The wisest."

Finally, someone would notice the quiet little calf standing at the back.

"And this is...?"

"Landas," his mother would answer with a warm smile.

Nothing more.

No one ever seemed to know what made Landas special.

At night, he lay beneath the stars listening to the songs of crickets.

"Perhaps I don't have a personality at all," he thought.

One morning he quietly kissed his mother's cheek.

"I want to find out who I am."

His mother looked at him for a long moment.

"Then before you begin," she said, "visit the wisest creature on the mountain."

Far inside the hollow of an ancient mahogany tree lived Lolo Dunong, the old owl.

Animals came to him hoping for answers.

Instead, they usually left with a question.

Landas bowed respectfully.

"Lolo Dunong," he asked, "how do I find who I am?"

The owl looked at him without speaking.

Then he asked,

"Landas... if one day every path on this mountain disappeared..."

"...where would you walk?"

Landas frowned.

"I don't know."

The owl nodded.

"Good."

Landas waited.

"Is that all?"

Lolo Dunong smiled.

"Do not look for a path."

"Listen for one."

Landas thanked him politely.

As he walked away, he whispered,

"That makes even less sense than my name."

Landas wandered farther than any young tamaraw had ever gone.

He climbed moss-covered cliffs where an eagle watched over her nest.

"How do you know who you are?" Landas asked.

The eagle spread her great wings.

"I learned to see farther than everyone else."

Landas looked across valleys and forests.

He still felt like himself.

Next he met a cheerful hornbill admiring its colourful beak in a quiet pond.

"How did you become so special?" Landas asked.

The hornbill laughed.

"I stopped worrying about fitting in."

Landas tucked bright white Sampaguita flowers behind his ears.

The butterflies admired him.

The monkeys laughed.

He did not feel different.

Farther into the forest, a tiny Mindoro dwarf kingfisher rested beside a stream.

"How do I find myself?" Landas asked.

The little bird tilted its head.

"The forest has never asked the rivers why they are not trees."

Landas thanked the kingfisher, though he did not understand.

He continued his journey.

He crossed rivers.

He discovered hidden springs.

He wandered through forgotten valleys.

He learned where butterflies gathered after rain.

He noticed which flowers opened first each morning.

He learned which trees the birds always returned to before sunset.

He listened to frogs, insects and flowing streams.

Still, he found no answer.

Then, one afternoon, the sky grew strangely dark.

The wind began to howl.

The oldest trees bent until their branches touched the ground.

Amihan, the great wind, had arrived with one of the fiercest typhoons the island had ever seen.

Rain fell for two days.

The mountains trembled.

Rivers burst their banks.

Landslides buried old trails beneath earth and stone.

When the storm finally passed, the forest had become unrecognisable.

Families were separated.

Young calves cried for their mothers.

Even the oldest bulls could no longer recognise the mountain they had known all their lives.

"This trail is gone!"

"The river has changed!"

"We're lost!"

Fear spread through the herd.

Landas stood quietly.

Then he remembered Lolo Dunong's question.

"If every path disappeared..."

"...where would you walk?"

He closed his eyes.

Then he remembered the owl's final words.

"Do not look for a path."

"Listen for one."

So he listened.

He heard frogs singing where fresh water had gathered.

He heard bees humming around flowers that had survived the storm.

He watched butterflies drifting towards untouched meadows.

He saw birds flying towards the only trees still standing.

Slowly, Landas smiled.

"The mountain is still speaking."

He lowered his head and gently pressed one hoof into the wet earth.

Then another.

Then another.

A frightened calf stared at him.

"What are you doing?"

Landas smiled.

"If there are no paths..."

"...then we must make one."

He did not search for the old trails.

He followed the mountain itself.

One by one, the others stepped into the footprints he left behind.

Tamaraw.

Deer.

Wild pigs.

Civets.

Before long, frightened families were walking together along a trail that had not existed that morning.

The path crossed hidden streams.

It climbed safe ridges.

It curved around unstable ground.

By sunset, parents had found their children.

Grandparents embraced their grandchildren.

The mountain was once again filled with joyful voices.

That evening, the oldest tamaraw stepped forward.

"I have watched every calf in this family grow."

He looked at Lakas.

"You became our strength."

At Bilis.

"You became our speed."

At Bantay.

"You became our watchful eyes."

Finally, he turned to Landas.

"When every path disappeared..."

"...you showed us that some paths must first be made."

Landas looked back at the line of fresh footprints stretching across the valley.

For the first time in his life, he understood his name.

A path does not need to be the oldest.

Or the widest.

Or the easiest.

Sometimes it begins with one brave step that others choose to follow.

Years passed.

The forests slowly healed.

Grass covered the scars left by the storm.

Most of the old trails disappeared forever.

But one narrow path remained, winding through the mountains of Mindoro.

The elders called it Landas' Trail.

Not because he had discovered it.

Because he had been the first to create it.

Young tamaraw often visited Lolo Dunong and asked whether the story was true.

The old owl would simply smile.

"I asked him where he would walk if every path disappeared."

He looked towards the distant mountains.

"At last..."

"...he answered."

And even today, when storms change the world and the old roads can no longer be found, the mountain still remembers what Landas taught.

The bravest hearts do not wait for someone else to show the way.

They become the path.