The next day we visited the factory, the first unguided tour we had ever embarked on. The paths were familiar, the walkways and the halls, though this time we were not following in the familiar shadow of our father, we were not watching him as he scolded his exhausted workers, not listening to the obscenities he would use to describe their apparent lack of effort or subpart product. No one dared disrespect us today, nor would they dare mess up in their production, for fear that Mycroft would turn out to be the same sort of monster that his father had grown to be. I wasn't sure what sort of boss my brother would amount to, though the way he dressed today, in a black suit with a fur lined trench coat and a hat tipped low down to his brow...well he was beginning to dress the part of manager, that was apparent. The factory itself was disheartening, with so many disheveled workers slaving in their stations, lifting large vats of molten metal, operating machines that breathed smoke and pollution into the air around them. Any drop of water, even sweat, instantly evaporated into the putrid air, and the entire room stunk of bubbling rock and flesh, the fruits of tireless labor and sacrifice only for the salary enough to live another day. It was hellish, perhaps the most vivid scene of human suffering I had witnessed since I had last visited my father's place of occupation. Though today there was something especially horrific in the conditions, today there was the opportunity for change. It made my stomach turn to realize that nothing would be done, would it? Mycroft batted not an eyelash; he showed not a speck of remorse. My brother's heart, wherever it might have lurked in the years before my departure, had been removed entirely from the equation. His humanity had leaked out with my father's life force, and beyond the responsibilities of a brother he now took on the weight of the family name, fortune, and legacy.
"Mycroft, this is terrible." I commented at last, noticing a man standing next to a large stirring vat, his arms draped in singed cloth as he gripped a large metal crank, turning a large gear that would stir the mixture to the right consistency. The man's face was drenched in sweat, crusted entirely as the moisture was sucked right into the dry, sweltering heat of the confined factory. It was supposedly winter out of these doors, though within the walls of the factory it may very well be Hell itself.
"This is what they are paid to do, brother mine. I cannot change it, lest we sacrifice the fortune they are providing us with." Mycroft muttered quite indifferently.
"Can't you find an ounce of remorse within yourself? You're not sounding like yourself at all!" I scolded harshly, at last looking away from where I saw a small child, crawling throughout the motionless machines in an attempt to dislodge apparent rubble from the halted gears.
"Sherlock, don't you grow soft on me." my brother growled. "We do what we have to do, what the economy demands of us!"
"This is inhumane, it's murder." I insisted.
"It's money." Mycroft explained flatly; as if such a word should heal all the damage that had been inflicted, as if such a concept of income could really faze me now. With all the money in the world, oh what were we going to do with anymore? Each one of these lives lost, well what were they sacrificing themselves for if not for a marginal increase of their master's already massive bank account? They were the ones on the front lines, dying because of this madness. Each pair of eyes I focused on sickened my stomach more and more, each man with a story, each mother with a child, each child without a future... It was corrupted; there was something entirely wrong with the way the system was operating. Something entirely unacceptable. Though what was all the more heartbreaking was my brother's reaction, my brother's capability! His unwillingness to see a problem, only a profit! Before long I had seen enough, as we made our way deeper into the factory, now where the walls seemed so far away, I had to make my escape. I had to run away from the stinking heat, the boiling flesh, the toiling workers who strained their eyes towards me for any plea of help. Me, standing in my suit and jacket, with my leather shoes and my full stomach, oh up for investigation by the pleading, burned, hungry workers who were entrusted under my family name. Each one of these lives wasted, and for nothing but myself! Oh if my career path was not yet decided before that visit well it certainly would be now! I could never put myself in front of such a factory, I could never associate my first name with the last name printed upon that building side. I would never be the boss, never in control. I'll leave to Mycroft, the man who seemed to have lost his heart the moment I gained mine. These months had allowed many things to change, and from seeing the state of things it really hadn't changed for the better. I walked swiftly towards the exit, thick black smoke coating my lungs as I inhaled deeply, my shoes slipping through the substances that the air would not accept, the waste products that would be dumped into the river instead, to avoid any proper disposal and the inevitable cost of such environmental responsibility. I was disgusted by what I saw, and when at last I burst through the doors of the factory and back out into the freshly fallen snow, tinted with the black debris falling from our smoke stacks, well I was once more reminded about the grievous conditions my good fortune had come from. Night and day I thanked God for the fortune we had been blessed with, but now those blessings seemed more like a terrible burden, each dollar soaked in blood! I wandered far from the factory, trudging now through the snow and huddling myself into the trench coat I had worn, acclimating terribly for the sudden change in temperatures. From escaping a room intended to melt metal now to an atmosphere that froze the water around it, well it was not a very good shock to the body. And so I sat for a moment, finding myself about a half a mile up the river, far enough away that the sounds of heavy machinery were able to fade to the background, replaced now with the slight gurgling of the steam as the water passed through the gaps and cracks in the massive, immobile chunks of ice. I huddled onto a park bench, having cleared the snow from it with a simple swipe of my indifferent hand, and stared into the stream. It was still pure, untainted water, good enough to drink! And to think that such pristine a stream would be tainted just a little while up the way, mixed with all the foul waste products of my father's wretched factory. I nearly wept to understand it, watching as small fish moved and darted along under the ice, going down stream to meet their death in the face of industrialism. Was this really what the world had come to? Was there no hope for us any longer, were we destined to take the world too powerfully in our stride, to try to control nature and in turn destroy ourselves? The world was ending, the world as we knew it at least. Technology could only go so far, so far as leaving us uncertain of the future, and certainly of our own losses. The wind was beginning to pick up, terribly cold as it snuck through the gaps in my jacket or my coiled scarf. Half of me wished for the carriage to arrive with my brother, insisting that we head home. The other half was hoping I was never called upon again, allowed to fade into the natural world around me until I was found under the thawed ground next spring. And so I merely listened, deciding that I need not trouble myself with what I hoped would happen soon...I only decided to appreciate what I was faced with now. A bubbling brook, frozen with the ice still collecting in the freezing temperatures. A plot of undisturbed snow, glistening with the sunlight that was able to permeate the thick clouds that lay above, shining light in all reflections like could any precious diamond. The sound of a song bird, sitting atop the barren trees, singing for a mate who may never come. And I, integrated so silently. Integrated so appreciatively. What was I these days but part of the scenery, part of the arrangement of nature's beautiful treasures? I was a fool, perhaps that was it. I was a fool for remembering back to my love, Tobias who I had sacrificed so easily! Should I write to him in the coming weeks, explaining my absence? Or should I instead let him go unresolved, his questions unanswered? A rejection, no matter how docile it was, was a rejection all the same. Perhaps he did not care what happened to his troubled friend, lost in the ways of love and human connection as a whole. Perhaps Tobias did not shed a single tear for what might have become of me, considering it a necessary loss. The only thing he missed, undoubtedly, was the book that now sat on my bedside table. No Tobias may not miss me, though Victor Trevor...well there was a loss worthy of consideration.
"Sherlock, Sherlock!" came my brother's familiar voice, the octaves echoing off of the deep snow that separated me from the small search party who came forging through in my footprints. I turned, collecting myself to my feet as if to make the impression that I was only passing through this place, wanting nothing to do with the freezing temperatures or the seemingly insignificant landscape.
"Mycroft, is your tour finished?" I wondered, looking a bit shamefully towards the men who climbed through the snow after my brother, men wearing nothing more than singed overalls and handkerchiefs around their head. They looked frozen solid, with their limbs shivering and snow collected up to their unprotected knees.
"Get inside, the lot of you." Mycroft insisted, waving the workers away with a wave of his leather clad fingers. The workers turned back the way they came, wordlessly.
"Thank you, thank you for your help!" I called after them, though my words might have met deaf ears, for I got no recognition for my help. Such a simple statement sent my brother's lips into a deep frown, and he stood in the cold, his arms crossed in a stern manner with the only sound coming from the crunching of the worker's old boots along the now properly trampled terrain. I looked back at the fading men, wishing they might show up again to disrupt whatever sort of speech I was going to get from this insufferable creature before me. Certainly he was disappointed, though I could not properly place why.
"Sherlock, my toes are turning to ice, and yet you force me to stand here and scold you!" Mycroft exclaimed.
"Scold me, for what? I was just sitting on the bench; I couldn't tolerate that air for much longer." I defended, trying to at least take a stance of innocence. Well I was innocent, surely, for I could not really turn my little escape into a crime or even an offense, no matter what stance I took to look at it. Perhaps Mycroft saw some trouble, but it must only be a trifle!
"We thought you had fallen into a vat, or been kidnapped for ransom! We had the whole factory searching when at last someone noticed footprints in the snow! Sherlock you ought to be more attentive, and more careful! It's no place to wander, no place to disappear from." Mycroft insisted, his frown easing now as his worry passed. I saw that his anger was just manifesting to cover up his deep fear of losing me, though his accusation felt more like the admittance of something far more grievous.
"The only reason there would be a chance of my demise in that place is because of the safety regulations our father has neglected to impose. You felt that fear once, imagining having to send me away to a factory so dangerous every day! We're in the position to change that, Mycroft! Now that he's gone." I insisted, remembering such struggling creatures within the walls of that horrible place. That fear that Mycroft might've felt for a moment, could it not drive him to make the right choice? Could it not sway him in the way of morality, of humanity?
"Watch your tongue, Sherlock. You know how much such measures will cost? And for what exactly? I gain no profit by saving a life, they are replaceable!" Mycroft snarled.
"They're humans!" I exclaimed, stomping my foot into the snow though producing no sound, only drenching my socks with the cold water my foot had displaced. I winced, though tried to maintain the impression of remaining calm. Mycroft didn't look impressed.
"Get to the carriage, Sherlock, and be glad I do not assign you a position at the factory! Be glad you don't need to stoop so low for a penny!" Mycroft exclaimed, clenching his fingers so that the leather stretched with awful tension, straining around his iron fist as it slowly came to a close. I sighed heavily, deciding it was better not to argue with a man I didn't even recognize. I could not understand what had happened to my brother since I had been away, what had those months done to him? Or perhaps what had they done to me? I spent so much time villainizing my brother, well who knows? Perhaps he had always been such a man, without my recollection. Perhaps I had just grown to be a hero, though of what story that was still to be decided. The story of my life, supposedly. Though back then I never knew it to be something so magnificent. 

 I regained my seat at the library, the only place that still felt safe enough to hide from the man of the house. My position seemed to be constant, no matter who ruled over me, the factory, and the entire town itself. My father's reign through this household had instilled just as much terror as I felt now, though at least in those days I found some relief within my brother's presence. When I was at my most lonely, most desperate, Mycroft always seemed to appear. He was softer back then, I remember him! I remember him... I indulged myself in whatever poetry books I could find in our extensive library, and to my dismay we only contained a very short, very stiff book of Wordsworth. While this was no fret, as such pages would undoubtedly allow me many hours of escape, the sheer absence of such literary forms troubled me. It would be a bit easier to announce my changed profession if my brother had at least been exposed to the form before, though it would seem that not a soul had opened this book since it had been placed upon its crowded, forgotten shelf. Even I, in my extensive searches for something new to read, must have missed it throughout my seventeen years of boredom. I read for a long while, enjoying whatever fire I could create without the aid of the servants and sitting in the stiff and unused leather that so often held my younger form. Back when the world of literature was mine to enjoy, not to create. Back when the feelings were a mere game, a mere entertainment! When I didn't understand the complexities of love, or the fret of living under the constant glare of an enemy. I was hopeless in those days, though such adaptation prepared me wholly for my time now, in which the muses have called for my pen to begin to write, and for my legacy to begin in an instant. These were the moments, oh how I regret them! The moments that lead up to the present, the moments that lead me into such a shocking and disappointing reality. Sat in that awful library, reading the words left by our leader long gone...came the announcement that would send my entire life pouring down the drain, oh just one drop at a time! One drop that could not mean anything at all, no not until the entire liquid has gone. 

"Sherlock, I'm going out tonight." Mycroft's voice called, standing at the doorway of the library as if he was much too afraid to pass through onto its familiar carpet. I quickly pushed the book away, worried that he would catch me with the ideas of another man, and jumped to my feet in response. Mycroft was dressed in his best, polished and preened as if he was to attend a very formal event. I was curious, and I let that curiosity steer my response for far too long.
"Where are you going like that?" I questioned, fixing my own curls where they may now fall at odd positions upon my head. When I read deeply I had the tendency to smooth my hair where it should not be, positioning it in all sorts of places that did nothing for my complexion.
"Oh some opera, I've received an invitation from some members of the London high society. An inauguration of sorts, into the social scene. I am taking a carriage into the city." Mycroft explained, though his words sounded properly exhausted, as if the efforts that went into making conversation were too strenuous for his fragile stamina.
"Oh how fancy." I chuckled. "Do you know the members?"
"Well the invitation itself came from a gentleman of the court, oh but I'm sure there are some other parliamentary members and whatnot. This group I assume is all fairly young gentleman, sons of Lords or things like that." Mycroft muttered without much enthusiasm.
"Sons of Lords. Will you be the only factory owner?" I wondered.
"I have not been specified either way. But it is a diverse group; I've even been told that a poet is among their ranks." Mycroft said with something of a chuckle, as if that was an outrageous profession, or perhaps even an outrageous person.
"A poet?" I breathed quickly. "Who?"
"Oh who knows? By the sound of him he is supposed to be quite good, but I have never meddled in such..."
"It's not Victor Trevor?" I wondered anxiously, finding my way around the couch without even feeling my legs move. I was approaching upon my brother, though my mind was so occupied with the words that would come from his mouth that I cared not about my positioning in the room. The man's face thought for a moment, that familiar look of confusion...
"Now that you mention it, that does sound rather familiar. Why, did you read him in school?" Mycroft wondered, quite without a care in the world. As if he didn't understand exactly who he was preparing himself to meet, the God above, the God of language!
"Yes, we had...well yes I did." I agreed almost blindly. "Mycroft you don't think I could come along? Oh please, please I would love to meet him!"
"What interest do you have in poetry? Sherlock you must be longing after mathematicians, chemists! No need for such silly arts." Mycroft insisted with something of a snuff.
"But, well Mycroft he's actually very talented. My...English Professor...well he would probably boost my grade in the class if I could talk to Mr. Trevor and ask him about the works he has created. There are actually a great number of poems that even my Professor can't determine the meaning of." I admitted quickly, nodding up and down as if trying to repeat the validity of my statement. It wasn't a very good argument, though it seemed as though Mycroft could not find any reason for foul play.
"And are you in need of a grade boost?" he wondered a bit apprehensively.
"Unfortunately English is my worst grade at the moment. Not bad in comparison, but still damaging my GPA if only by a margin." I lied quickly. Mycroft didn't seem to realize that we hadn't even been taught English, not by any professor at least, and he still looked quite indifferent.
"Well then, if you can dress quickly I suppose..."
"Oh thank you!" I exclaimed at last, running up to my brother with the intention of throwing my arms around his neck, just like one of the hugs we used to share so commonly in our youth. However when I got within range he seemed to hesitate, taking just the smallest step backwards in retreat, as if he was quite afraid of what I might do when I grew too near. And so I stopped, halting in my tracks at the sudden realization that he didn't want my embrace, not even a simple touch of thanks. I merely nodded, deciding not to dwell on the more depressing realizations of my time here. And with that I raced to my room, though not quick enough to work up any kind of sweat.