Ever since I was discharged from the army, due to injuries to my shoulder and leg, I had always sought to escape by turning into a leopard. My left shoulder, which had been hit in the subclavian artery with a Jezail bullet at Maiwand, no longer hurt when I was a leopard; neither did my leg, which had been clipped by a sniper with another bullet during the retreat.
I knew it was cowardly to try to escape my fate, but it shouldn't have happened to me in the first place. I do not mean that in the sense that it should have been somebody else; if Providence had decreed for me to be injured, who am I to protest?
Yet I had the elemental power of earth. Bullets, and the materials that made them, therefore fell under my jurisdiction. And following that logic, neither bullet should have wounded me. And yet they had.
And yet, was it a sin to enjoy being a leopard? To revel in the power of the leopard's limbs? They were incredibly strong, and it did not hurt to walk. I did not have a limp. It did not hurt to move my shoulder, as when I was a leopard I was completely free of any reminders of the Second Afghan War. I could use all of my limbs with ease, and yet I always had to return to my wounded human form. The things that were a joy to me, I could not do as a feline.
I could not read, as I had no hands to turn the pages. For the same reason, I could not write. I could not even continue my practice as a leopard. Besides the lack of precise hands- in fact, the lack of any hands at all- it would not do for a doctor to be a leopard. I could only imagine the looks on my hypothetical patients' faces. No, it would not do for me to be a leopard permanently.
And when it came to help Holmes on cases, I would only be able to guard from close range, unless I was at full strength, when I could use elemental attacks. A leopard could not even carry a revolver, much less shoot one. And if the opponent had a gun, by the time that I was close enough to attack, it would be too late.
Otherwise, I have no doubt I would never change back to human.
