First dragon you ever fought, where were you, what level?

[EbonyWarrior]

I was level 6 outside Whiterun, totally unprepared, thought I could tank it. Got absolutely demolished by that first dragon near the watchtower. Reloaded like five times before I realized I needed to actually use my shouts and stop running straight at it. That fight took me like twenty minutes. Now I speedrun past dragons on my playthroughs but there's something about that first one that still sticks with me.

What about you guys? Where did your first real dragon encounter go down? I feel like a lot of people get the scripted one at the Whiterun watchtower but some of you probably ran into one way earlier and got absolutely wrecked.

 

[ScrollsOfTamriel]

Mine was also that watchtower dragon, level 7 I think, but I somehow managed to cheese it by running back to the guards and letting them do most of the work while I pelted it with whatever arrows I had. Felt like a total coward at the time but honestly that fight taught me more about positioning and using the environment than any of the dragons I actually "beat" myself later on.

The thing that got me was realizing after like the tenth reload that I was supposed to be using Unrelenting Force to knock it around. I'd been hoarding my shout cooldown like it was a limited resource or something. Once I started actually spamming the shout the fight became way more manageable. Now on subsequent playthroughs that same dragon dies in like thirty seconds and it's kind of sad how the power curve just flattens out.