Shortly after the Fell Winter, when Bilbo was still just a young hobbit in his tweens, the very last thing he had expected on his leisurely walk out into Bindbale Wood to do a little reading and getting away from his nagging father, was to find a lost warg pup.
"Blast it all," Bilbo muttered, swatting away a loose bramble bush branch that had caught the bottom hem of his pant leg, scowling as the branch tore a ragged hole in his cuff. "I'll never hear the end of this from father."
He sighed quietly and brushed his fingers over the rough fabric, blowing a stray curl out of his face in irritation, before jerking and dropping his book into the brambles when he heard a faint whimpering sound coming from the other side of the bush. He shakily reached into the bush, extracting his rather badly beaten book, clutching it to his chest as he edged around the bush.
"Hello?" the hobbit all but whispered, peeking around the twisting, reaching branches to spot the source of the noise. He very nearly dropped his book again at the sight of a tiny warg pup caught in the thorns.
The pup whined loudly when it spotted Bilbo, pulling on its already bloody leg, it's small but sharp claw digging into the soft dirt beneath it as it tried to wriggle free to run away.
"Oh! Oh, hush," Bilbo murmured, although petrified the mother warg might be prowling about, far too concerned for the little one's health and safety to mind much else. He carefully set his book aside, crawling on his knees towards the pup. Upon closer inspection, he noticed the way the pup's fur was matted on it's belly, the hint of a scar on it's ear, and the nearly disturbing prominence of it's ribs. "Are you all alone, little one?" the hobbit cooed, realizing that the mother had probably left the pup some time ago to fend for itself, once the hobbits had finally managed to chase the last of the wargs away.
The pup let out a pathetic growling sound, barring it's teeth at the hobbit, before yanking at it's leg again. It had obviously learned a distrust of hobbits after its mother and possible siblings were chased away from the shire.
"Now, now," Bilbo murmured, resting on his knees just out of reach of the pup's jaws, "I mean you no harm, honestly. Don't you want to be free of those nasty brambles?"
The tiny warg seemed to eyeball Bilbo for a long minute, before finally collapsing down onto it's belly, all the fight drained out of its weak little body. It let out another pathetic growl, but made no move to snap at Bilbo when the hobbit reached out to untangle its leg from the bush.
"There, now!" Bilbo chirped, pleased at his work, while yanking off his neckerchief to wrap the sluggishly bleeding wound, "All fixed up. Doesn't that feel better?" Bilbo smiled pleasantly as the pup stood on its wobbly legs, limping in a small circle, before huffing out a breath and collapsing in front of Bilbo, it's head resting against the hobbit's knee.
Bilbo felt his heart break for the poor creature. Warg or not, it was still just a wee babe, and he had no cause to begrudge it of it's life. He gently scooped the pup up into his arms, the animal making no sound or move of protest as Bilbo carried it back towards Bag End.
"Mother will be so pleased. Father is going to have a fit," he commented idly, smirking at the warg, who glanced up at the hobbit wearily.
~
"No! No! Stop! Bad warg! Put that down! I said, put that down!"
Bilbo scurried after the little warg pup, shouting obscenities as he tried to regain the mangled up crochet the creature had in it's jaws.
"Drop it!" Bilbo snapped at the warg, who growled playfully back at him, shaking it's head, tossing the doily into the air, before snapping it back between it's teeth.
"Ohhh, think you're clever do you, Ylva? So clever," the hobbit grumped, folding his arms over his chest, staring down the she-warg. "Well! I can be clever, too! No treats for a week, if you don't drop that right this instant!"
The warg's eyes seemed to grow wide for a moment, before she bowed her head and dropped the drool covered crochet onto the floor.
"Mhmm, that's what I thought," Bilbo huffed, snatching up the crochet without thought, only to make a disgusted face and promptly fling the doily across the room. Ylva howled, almost as if laughing, bouncing forward to lick at Bilbo's face.
"Oh, yes, you're hilarious," the hobbit scoffed, trying and failing to shove the warg away. "Mother is going to be so pleased to find out you ate another doily."
~
Ylva whined, setting her head on Bilbo's lap as the hobbit stared forlornly into the fire, silent tears slowly rolling down his cheeks. The hobbit placed a gentle hand on the beast's head, stroking behind her ear, though his eyes never left the fire.
"It's just you and I now, girl," he murmured, a fresh wave of grief and tears hitting him like a tidal wave.
~
Bilbo threw his arms into the air after he'd managed to get his doily back from the star-haired dwarf, just barely containing himself from bashing his head into the shelves of his barren pantry.
"They're really a merry bunch, once you get used to them," Gandalf remarked from the doorway beside him, the hobbit immediately turning his fowl glare on the wizard.
"If Ylva wasn't off hunting, these dwarves would not be in my house!" the hobbit snapped, barely keeping himself from shrieking as one of the dwarves (the blonde one, with the newly sharpened swords) went strolling down his hall, blowing smoke rings into the ceiling.
"But she is, and they are," the wizard hummed with a smile, looking like he knew something Bilbo didn't. The hobbit simply continued to glare at the wizard, before a foreboding knock came from behind his front door.
~
"Do you think I should go?" Bilbo asked the warg who'd come back some time during the night after the dwarves had gone, a hint of the rabbit she'd eaten still splattered on the fur of her jaw. Bilbo gently cleaned her fur with an old rag while casting furtive glances at the folded contract still sitting on his table. Ylva cocked her head at the hobbit, her tail making great thumping noises against the floor as she wagged it.
~
"WAIT!"
Ylva howled as she jumped over a fallen tree, Bilbo clutching tightly to her fur as she ran through the woods to catch up to the compant of dwarves.
"WARG!" someone shouted, the dwarves all seeming to scramble for their weapons, before Gandalf urged his horse forward, blocking a good chunk of the dwarves from getting anything at the running warg.
"I signed it!" Bilbo chirped happily, the odd silence and shifting of weapons going completely over the hobbit's head. He simply urged Ylva forward towards Balin, who took the offered contract with a nervous glance at the beast Bilbo was riding.
"Everything seems to be in order," Balin declared, folding the paper up and tucking it into his tunic. "Welcome to the company, laddie."
Bilbo grinned at the white haired dwarf, glancing around as Ylva pawed at the ground, and near every dwarven eye fell on the great beast.
~
Bilbo watched in amusement as Bofur trundled across the camp, arms full of firewood, with a happy warg dogging his every step.
"Off with ya, now!" Bofur huffed, dumping his load near the fire pit Bifur and Bombur had set up to cook dinner, the toy maker nearly running smack into Ylva's snout when he'd turned around. "Now yer just bein' a bother."
Bofur huffed and moved around Ylva to fetch more wood, the warg not taking the least bit of a hint, and eagerly following after the usually jovial dwarf.
"It's your own fault for feeding her," Bilbo called after Bofur, receiving a rude gesture in return, which only served to make the hobbit laugh harder.
~
When Azog attacked, Bilbo didn't know what to do, he'd just gone on instinct. And Ylva had gone along with it. Hobbit and warg stared down the pale orc, and one nearly did not survive.
"GANDALF!" Bilbo screamed as he saw the eagles dropping wargs off the side of the cliff, clamoring to shove his sorry excuse for a sword back into it's hilt and get to Ylva, before she was mistaken for a member of the attacking force.
Bilbo looked frantically looked for the wizard, finally catching sight of him still clinging to the falling tree, which only caused his stress to escalate higher. He dodged around the grasping claws of one of the eagles, knowing that if he was taken up into the air, Ylva would surely be thrown to her death.
"Ylva! Ylva, come!" he screamed, waving frantically at his warg, whom had just barely managed to dodge the heavy swing of an orc mace. He rushed to meet her in the flames of the cliff, screaming as an eagle very nearly scooped her up. Somehow she ducked the claws of the gigantic eagle and bolted for her master, ducking down so he could climb onto her back and cling desperately to her blood streaked fur in relief, only to gasp in panic as they were finally snatched up by the eagles.
He shrieked and Ylva howled as they soared through the air, the hobbit expecting them to be dropped into the abyss below. But not gut wrenching feeling of the earth falling out from beneath them came, and the eagles dropped them safely with the rest of the company on the top of the carrock.
Bilbo shakily slid from Ylva's back, the warg laying on the cool rock once the hobbit was off her back, whimpering quietly as he hugged her tight as stroked her dirty fur.
"Thorin!"
Bilbo jerked at the shout, giving Ylva an apologetic look, before going to see if the dwarf king had truly survived. So far, the journey had been perilous, and if Thorin had not lived past his second encounter with Azog, then Bilbo would go home. There was no point to continue on a journey where he was under appreciated, unwelcome, and unneeded.