A puff of pale, frosty breath dissipated into the cold air from a pair of wet- and very cold- nostrils. His nose and his slightly-chilly ears, though, were the only parts of Aldo that truly felt the cold: his dark winter coat kept him nice and toasty despite the unpleasantly nippy weather. He was enjoying his new ability to shift, enjoying the fact that he didn't need snowshoes to travel swiftly across the deep snow because his paws [i]were[/i] the snowshoes. A brief flash of grief tugged at his heart when he wished that his friend were alive to see him learning how to find his footing among the Odessa Pack. 

For the majority of the day, Aldo had been curled up comfortably under thick covers like any sane human on their day off work, reading a book. Now, though, he'd decided that it would be impolite to not go and hang out with the pack, maybe do something nice for them. That was the story of why there was a wolf trotting briskly but cautiously along a small road with a plastic grocery bag in its mouth; it contained hot chocolate powder and teabags as well as a couple of boxes of cookies and some cake mix. It also had his clothes in it. Aldo wasn't sure if werewolves, like dogs and probably wolves, had bad reactions to chocolate. That was why he'd make a point of trying out some of the stuff first. Or just doing the easy thing and asking, like he'd been meaning to.  

The warm, inviting lights of the pack house encouraged the no-doubt strange looking wolf to walk faster, his tail lifting into the air slightly as he looked forward to the warmth of the house and hot chocolate. He snuck into a thick clump of bushes, quietly set down the bag, took a couple of minutes to shift (he hadn't quite gotten the hang of it, yet), pulled on his clothes and walked into the house with the bag of delicious goodies in tow. Aldo shivered slightly when the cold caught up to him after the loss of his luxurious fur. He could smell that the Geri was here, and since this made him nervous, he moved slowly and quietly, not sure where she was. He put some water on the stove to boil with a cookie in his mouth. [i]So far so good,[/i] he thought on the subject of chocolate.