Story Snippets - Sendring

Today I would like to share a scene with you from one of the writing projects I'm working on.  It is currently a standalone scene, with no lead-up and nothing to tie it to what I already have.  Hopefully that will change soon.

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Sendring stared out the open window.  The wind caught the leaves of an aspen tree and flung them around, the late afternoon sunlight catching them in its glow.  He watched the girl called Mathilda as she laughed and danced with her friends.  She tripped over a stone and fell backward onto the path, still laughing.  Sendring felt his heart tug painfully and resisted the urge to run out and help her up.  Too soon, too soon, he cautioned himself.

He tore himself away from the window and paced around the room, his leather boots thunking heavily on the floor.  He ran a calloused hand through his night-black hair, making the spikes even more pronounced than before.  What was he thinking, looking at a human girl?  He might look human when he wished, but he would always be different.  He walked over to the mirror and watched as he slowly allowed the spiked ridge to appear, running down his skull under his hair and along his spine.  He felt it pulling on his shirt as the material was stretched beyond what it was accustomed to.  He looked down at his arms and saw the fine pattern of red-gold scales stretching up along his elbows and down to the backs of his hands.  Glancing back in the mirror, he saw the same red-gold scales sweeping across his cheeks.  His jaw looked more angular than before, and when he concentrated, a few wisps of smoke seeped out of the corners of his mouth.

Sendring sighed and flung himself heavily into a nearby chair.  Caught between two worlds, he could not fully assume the shape of a dragon, but neither could he pretend he had no dragon aspects.  The female dragons held no appeal for him but dragon pride scorned pairing with a mere human.  And yet, Mathilda--

He stood up abruptly and removed his leather shirt.  With his chest bare, it was apparent that the scales continued down over his torso as well.  He slowly allowed his wings to appear, growing out of his back next to his shoulder blades, stretching them to their maximum span of fifteen feet.  Nowhere near as impressive as a true dragon's, of course, but sufficient to let him fly and feel the wind on his face.  He flexed them once, twice--then folded his wings enough to run hurriedly through the back door, before launching himself into the setting sun.
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Well, what do you think?  Does it make you want to read more?  Do you have any suggestions for improving it?