When you walk a long time through the wild, you begin to crave a city.

It's not loneliness. Or… not only that. You're fine without playing another game of Twenty Questions or I Spy.

For several months you traveled with a girl from your hometown named Olivia. "Challenge accepted," she said when you invited her along. And it was a challenge. You'd been friends for several years, through high school and the trainer certificate program, and had spent most days after class at your house or at the arcade together. You were unprepared for how different it would feel to have only her for human company all day every day and all night every night. Even the silences were different, more crowded.

The two of you had a routine: You packed the tents while she made breakfast (usually oatmeal) and cleaned the cook gear. She made camp while you cooked dinner (usually EZ-Mac with soy protein bits and dehydrated greens.) After dinner you ran your pokemon through drills together and sparred. You miss that the most. She trained a delcatty (Darcy) and a swellow (Lurie) that paired perfectly against your manectric and golbat, blow for blow. You haven't had a partner since who is as driven and eager without taking losses personally, and you know your team was leaner and faster when she was around.

But with Olivia there was always too much else going on. She masked her sentimentality with bathroom humor and punches, but she constantly took on strays. She would catch a pidgey with a broken wing or a rattata missing a fang sooner than something she actually wanted to train — she had a sixth sense for finding them, whether it was in a back alley of Saffron City or under a rock ledge. They were endearing to her because they were pathetic, and her fascination with the sickly repulsed you. She named them after her favorite movie characters and athletes (like a scrawny rattata she inexplicably named Tebow), and had detailed theories about what flavor of retiree or housewife in the next city would be best to adopt each of them as pets. She dragged you with her to knock on doors and make adoption pitches only once — you didn't allow a second excursion. You spent a lot of time reading junk magazines and waiting for her when you traveled together.

One day, after a fight about Darwin and ecology, you told her you were going ahead and you'd meet her in town. You both knew without discussion that you wouldn't meet up again. You also knew you both accepted the loss.

You still exchange emails when you pass through a town.

Since then you've shared your campfire a few times, but never for long. Always when it was someone who was headed the same way on the same trail and it would be more uncomfortable not to speak.

Tonight you sit on a blanket next to your fire, shuffling cards furiously and slapping them down. You like how the enormity of the woods at night makes those sounds small. You like the heat of the fire along one side of your body and the cool air through your unzipped parka. Your manectric rests his head on your thigh while your golbat hunts moths and maybe bigger things. You're comfortable, but you wish it were a bar.

It's not the crowd or the noise or even the alcohol you're aching for but the choice. To talk to the person next to you or not. To have an IPA or a cocktail. To play pool or watch. To stay or go outside and experience something completely different: a bar with better music, a quieter bar, an empty street, a room with a door that locks.

The only way for you to exit this still night in Viridian Forest and choose something else is to walk. A lot.

You play solitaire for hours by campfire light. You play so much solitaire lately you've invented a few versions of your own. (In one, the different four suits represent wild pokemon of either advantageous or disadvantageous typing, pokeballs, or potions and must be defeated or avoided.) What you want more than anything tonight is to play poker, not for the chance to win cash but for the thrill of an intellectual challenge, an ending you can't guess by yourself.

You want someone to say, "Challenge accepted."