Title: Born To The Wilderness
Fandom: Due South
Author: badly_knitted 
Characters: Fraser.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 450
Spoilers: Nothing too specific.
Summary: Fraser doesn't belong in Chicago.
Written For: Challenge 338: Horizon.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Due South, or the characters.



The city of Chicago couldn’t have been further outside of Fraser’s experience if it had tried. Tall buildings, stained from decades of air pollution, were no substitute for majestic pines and towering, snowclad mountains. The choking fumes belched out by cars and buses were a far cry from the cold, fresh, clean air of the Northwest Territories. His ears were constantly assaulted by revving engines, blaring horns, and people shouting. How could anyone hear themselves think in such a din?

Everywhere was crowded, Chicago’s denizens jostling and shoving each other, always in a hurry to be somewhere else. The never said ‘I’m sorry,’ or ‘Excuse me,’ merely shoved past, or elbowed each other out of the way. It was no wonder everyone seemed to be in such a bad mood most of the time. Good manners appeared to be a foreign concept.

Brown and grey predominated. There was precious little greenery to be seen outside of the parks, and what there was looked ragged and dusty, struggling to survive in a place it didn’t belong. Perhaps it was the same with the people, sickened by the ever-present pollution, the growth of their minds and their spirits stunted. Sometimes, Fraser was sure he could feel his own shrivelling. There was nothing here to nourish the soul.

He yearned for the snowy expanses where the air tasted of ice and smelled of pine resin. He ached to feel the chill wind gusting across the snowy expanse, clearing his head and freeing his mind. The wind blew in Chicago, but it wasn’t the same, heavy with burning hydrocarbons and greasy fast food, unnatural and barely breathable for someone with a finely tuned olfactory sense. Dief didn’t like it either.

Fraser felt penned in, trapped, constrained, unable to see any further than the end of the street and if it hadn’t been for the importance of his mission he wouldn’t have stayed for more than a few days, but he’d arrived on the trail of his father’s killer and somehow he was still here.

Still, it wouldn’t be forever. Someday he’d be returning home to the place he belonged, where the snowfields stretched to the horizon and beyond, and the only things that blocked the view were trees, mountains, and maybe a herd of caribou. A place where nothing was penned in and the only thing beyond the horizon was more horizon.

Until that time, he could dream of wide-open spaces, clean air filling his lungs, a world unspoiled by so-called civilisation where a man could rely only on himself, his skills, and his wolf. City life was not for him. Like Dief, he’d been born to the wilderness. It was in their blood.


The End