AN: Based on an event that happened in my last playthrough. I don't own TES, otherwise I'd be rich.
Autumnwatch Tower are actually two, tall and intimidating even nestled between walls of rock. No Word Wall is visible from the ground - she would see and feel it.
Left or right? She chews on her bottom lip for a moment. She knows places like this, ancient lairs usually inhabited by one or more hungry dragon. If she accidentally wakes it - if she makes a mistake, any mistake - she is dead. But she hasn't got all night. Left for luck, right for fight, she decides like in her childhood. She sneaks slowly into the tower.
From the inside it's even bigger - with such a diameter, some of the smaller houses in Whiterun would fit nicely. She walks upstairs, passes another floor...then she has reached the top. The sky is cloudless, the aurora blazing down on her - and the dragon.
She notices the beast immediately, perched at the edge of the tower, between a huge, ornate chest and a small stone arch that leads to the Word Wall carved into the mountain. Her hands find the hilts of her daggers, her heart begins to beat faster, and only after a few tension-filled moments she realizes the dragon doesn't attack her. She relaxes, just a little bit, sneaks closer.
It's sleeping.
Its heavy grey-brown body is balancing only on the two strong legs, the wings are hanging unfurled by its sides, the snout almost grazing the stones of the platform atop the tower. The long tail is the single part of its body that isn't completely limp; it curves elegantly at the end, the tip which is shaped like a spearpoint pointing slightly upwards. With every intake of breath, it rises; with every exhale, it lowers a bit.
She has fought fought probably a dozen dragons in the last few months. She knows their ways of attacking, knows when they are about to Shout, knows what hurts them, knows when to strike and when to seek shelter. Now she is mesmerized by the perfect silence, the stillness between the breaths. It feels as if she is seeing a dragon for the first time; she ignores the chanting and pulling from the Word Wall, the dizziness and blurring vision. She has never noticed the different kinds of scales, or the delicate bones visible through the skin at their wings, the line of spikes running along the spine, the thick veins pulsating at the soft-looking throat...
Throat. She pulls out one dagger, slowly moves nearer. If she strikes now, she can get rid of another dragon out for mortal prey. There will be one dragon less to hunt her. One more soul to make her stronger. She licks her lips, pulls her arm back to drive the small blade with all her power into the beast's neck.
Suddenly she wonders what it's dreaming.
The dagger falls from her hand and she catches it only inches from the ground, slicing deep in her fingers. She winces but makes no sound, and the dragon doesn't stir, still caught in its dream. Tears well up in her tears all of a sudden, from the pain and the bitter feeling of defeat inside her, for she can't. Can't kill, can't forget the question, can't stop looking at the stillness of the beast.
With a trembling hand she sheats the dagger, no caring about the blood welling from her fingers - she has had worse, she'll cast a healing spell later - and sneaks past the dragon towards the Word Wall and it releases its energy into her. krii it whispers kill and she smiles a little bit at that. Not today.
After she's absorbed the word, she even dares to move around the dragon and loot the ancient chest next to it. She pockets a few nice gems and an enchanted sword, casts a last glance at the sleeping nightmare and leaves the tower.
A few hours later, just as the sun begins to rise, she thinks she hears a quiet, furious scream from the Tower's general direction, and begins to laugh.