A/N: I feel that this requires further explanation so I don't get lynched.

As you may have noticed from a glance at my other Silmverse fanfiction, I'm a bit of a Celegorm fan. The reasons for this are immaterial - what is more important is what I wanted to explore about his relationship to his brothers, in particular Curufin, and to other persons who don't die in the first chapter of this story like some people I could name. Namely, I was curious what impact the murder of one of the brothers apparently closer to him might do, and the long-range consequences it might have.

Think of this as me playing a little, seeing what could have happened in my personal pseudoheadcanon, and please don't shoot me. On the other hand, if you enjoy, or there is a major glaring error, that I do want to know. Without further ado, then. Obviously the material is not mine, and I mean no disrespect at all - in fact, quite the opposite.

Now that that's out there.

For a moment, he didn't realize what had happened. He felt his brother shudder and then begin slipping sideways off the horse; tried to catch him but could not stay mounted at the same time and leaped down, barely keeping his feet. Only then did he see his little brother's hands wrapped around the dart sunk deep in his breast, expression largely surprised, tugging fruitlessly at the shaft in what seemed more akin to befuddlement than pain.

Tyelko looked up, holding his brother upright, and saw Beren standing, expression fierce with righteous rage. Blood stained the front of his tunic. He was suddenly aware of how his own heart beat in counterpoint to his faltering brother's, strong and steady.

Kurvo's head fell forward, weight resting on Tyelko's arms, more helpless than he would ever be, before or thereafter.

Rage rolled up hot and smothering and fiercer than anything he had ever known, and yet he could not leave his brother dying. They had already had Kurvo's horse and were mounted as his brother slipped further in his arms, breathing beginning to sound wet. Beren spat on the ground as he took up the rains, eyes like chips of ice.

And he could do nothing.

Tyelko screamed in incoherent, impotent rage as they turned their backs and rode away. He wanted to kill them both, shoot down the horse and hunt them like beasts to their deaths -

And he could do nothing.

The voice surprised him, thick and barely recognizable. "Out." His brother's voice; he looked down and his little brother's glazed eyes watched him. His too red tongue flicked out and touched his lips, lightly. "Eru – take it out of me."

It was the first time in a very long while that Tyelko heard Kurvo invoke their god. It shook him, he shook slightly and eased Curufin to the ground, laid a hand over the dart, bolt between thumb and forefinger. The wood was warm and damp with blood and he watched with horrified fascination the way the shaft pulsed between his heartbeat and breathing.

"You'll bleed out," he said, faintly. "If I leave it – maybe we can make it – Thargelion is not so far."

"Die here, die there…" Curufin's mouth twitched. "There's no cure for a bolt in the chest. Take it out of me." Tyelko swallowed hard, wrapped his hand around the shaft, and hesitated.

"I'm sorry-" He began, but his brother's gaze was direct.

"Shut up. Don't know how wrong…want it out. One pull would be better." Tyelko felt sick, laid his hand on his brother's heaving chest, and met his eyes, bracing, before tugging once, hard. He felt it shift, nauseatingly, but the barbs caught with a hitch and Kurvo made a soft and plaintive noise, surprising in its evident pain for the first time. Tyelko froze, pulled back, but "No, again," Kurvo said, huskily, death already in his voice.

He tightened his fist and pulled again, and this time the head tore free in a burst of flesh and blood. His brother shuddered, violently, said a soft "Aaah," and died.

Tyelko stared at his brother's glazing gray eyes, blank, confused, unmoving, and after a moment closed them slowly, not wanting them to watch him anymore. The horror and despair came more slowly. Tears did not come at all.

**

He spent most of the day making his brother's grave. He had nothing to dig with and did not want to dull his sword, so he built a cairn instead. Tyelko closed his eyes as his brother's skin grayed and his limbs became rigid. He buried his little brother's knife, sword, and bow with him and straightened, slowly. Dusk began to fall and he felt stiff and sluggish as a corpse himself.

Tyelko felt empty. What now? Always, always, Kurvo had led him forward. For better or for worse, it was Kurvo who laid their course, Kurvo who set the paths, Kurvo who made the plans. Now he was just – dead. In barely a few moments, their father's favorite son had perished. Now there was nothing left but a makeshift grave beside a tree, name graven clumsily in wood staked in the ground as deep as it would go.

He could go to Thargelion, continue on the path they had set. Caranthir would likely welcome him. Or he could ride north to shelter with Maedhros.

Or, he thought, bleakly, he could simply ride northwest and wait for the Enemy's beasts to find him. It would be a fine thing to kill a dragon, or even to fall fighting one; but those were bleak thoughts, shameful thoughts, and he shook them away like flies.

He could ride to his brothers, flee his shame, tell them of the fall of one more of their number and how he had failed to stop it.

He could leave his younger brother lying cooling and unavenged in the ground, without a proper grave, with none of the honor due him, fallen simply to some upstart Edain who saw fit to challenge the way things were supposed to be.

No.

Vengeance. Once he thought the word it would not leave, and his blood which had been cold and sluggish and thin in his veins thickened and ran hot and began roaring in his ears. Staring blindly down at his brother's cairn, remembering the way Kurvo had shuddered and died, he thought the word again. Vengeance.

It tasted salty sweet on his tongue, like fire or blood, bitter enough to sting but sweet enough to satisfy. A word colored red. What was their name known for? Vengeance. Never forgive.

Beren had taken his nephew, his home, a life with children and the chance to take the world and mold it to a better place. And now, if that were not enough, he had taken, had killed, his younger brother: Curufin whom he had held and who had suckled his fingertips greedily when he was very small, who stood by him and defended him when he faced something he could not fight, Curufin whom he taught to hunt and trap and listen. Curufin who had stood with him even unto exile.

His right hand clenched, fingernails biting flesh. He swore on the sticky, drying blood on his hands that Beren would pay in his own red blood and tears, that Tyelkormo Turcafinwe would not rest until he hunted him down and spilled his lifeblood in the dirt, until he watched the light of life flee his eyes.

The whinny of his returning horse shook him from his reverie and he looked up. North. They rode north, to Doriath or further things. He could follow them, would follow them, track them easily, kill Beren, and then…

And then? What after?

Did it matter?

He brushed the thoughts off and turned with purposeful stride for his horse. After he could go to his brothers with Kurvo avenged. That could be good enough. But now – no mercy. Had he not been the best of hunters in Valinor, once so very long ago? It would be easy to remember how, and they would be hunted, no matter where they might go. No place would be safe and no wound would hold him back.

Tyelko set his sights northward, on the distant line of trees, and nudged his heels into his horse's sleek sides. Better Findarato lived than you, he thought, and a moment later did not understand himself. Already his thoughts ran red with blood, though his expression showed nothing at all.