Learning to Fly
is an Avatar: The Last Airbender Series Fic written by starofjems on Archive of Our Own.
Zuko's journey through the years leading up to Aang's awakening. Three years is a long time, especially for a young teenager, even more so for a young teenager that discovers an ancestor's destiny to carry through.
Starts as canon, only to progressively dip into AU territory.
Learning to Fly provides examples of:
- Already Met Everyone: The series has Zuko encounter many of ATLA's side characters during his three-year search for the Avatar. These include Professor Zei, the Guru, the sandbenders who stole Appa, the Music Nomads, Teo and his father, Princess Yue, and even Toph.
- Awful Truth: There was no Air Army, only Air Nomads. What the Fire Nation did was destroying a whole people out of lust for power.
- Bigotry Exception: Wan Shi Tong allows Zuko to enter his library in spite of the owl's distaste for humans as a rule and firebenders as too destructive, because the boy genuinely wants to learn for his self-improvement and promises he will help to restore and supply the library.
- Cast Full of Gay: The Yang-gang. Yangcheng and Akari were lesbian and head over heels for each other, Huizhong was a trans woman who fell for the Butch Lesbian Siniq.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Yangcheng and Akari met when they still were preteens, and married after Yangchen was acclaimed as the fully realized Avatar.
- Culture Clash: Zuko and Princess Yue passionately debate the advantages and inconveniences of oral transmission (very much in effect in the Poles) and written word (held in high esteem by the Earth Kingdom and the Fire Nation).
- Dork Knight: Oh, Zuko. He will fight you with flame and dao, and he will gush over Yangchen whenever you give him the opportunity to do so. He outright braved the Si Wong desert in order to find the Wan Shi Tong's library and read as much as he wanted.
- Entertainingly Wrong: As Zuko travels all around the world, his curiosity about a former Avatar and the new bending techniques he unlocks lead people to believe he might be the Avatar.
- Fling a Light into the Future:
- Princess Akari ultimately couldn't fulfill her destiny of bringing lung dragons back to the world, so the egg she found was kept hidden in the Western Air Temple for the right person to hatch it in her stead.
- Yangchen's diary ends up with several notes of her friends and companions, hoping that a descendant of Akari is reading them and has learnt the truth about the former Air Avatar.
- Friend to All Living Things: Zuko really loves his beasties, to the point his crew is actually betting on him having a zoo in his bedroom. He's mainly preoccupied with his dragon egg's well-being, but he also dotes on flying gerboas and knowledge-seekers from Wan Shi Tong's library.
- Gender-Blender Name: Huizhong first was a male name, only for the transgender Earthbending teacher to Yangchen to make it heavily popular for girls.
- Hero-Worshipper: The more Zuko learns about Yangchen and Akari, the more he will gush over them to anyone in his surroundings.
- It Runs in the Family: The Fire Nation royals tends to have sane, reasonable firstborns that disapprove of disunity between the four nations. It tends to end badly for the poor suckers.
- Lazy Bum: Bun Ma's work ethic is to nap on the job. Zuko has to harass her a lot before she decides to put some effort in being a soldier, and she's not enthusiastic about it.
- Masculine–Feminine Gay Couple: Siniq the Northern Water Tribe Action Girl and Huizhong the gently-raised, always dolled-up aristocrat.
- The Mole: Subverted with Ensign Jae. She was assigned to the Sazanami by Zhao to spy on Zuko. However, she immediately informs Iroh of this because she can't stand working for Zhao and only accepted the assignment in order to get away from him.
- My Greatest Failure: For Yangchen, it was her failure to come back from the Spirit World in time to save her beloved Akari and her friend Huizhong's lives from assassins bent on killing the Avatar. Worse, Fire Princess Akari's demise prompted the Fire Nation to start mistrusting the Avatar, something that later snowballed into the Air Nomads' genocide.
- Neglectful Precursors: The Avatars unfortunately tend to leave a big mess for their successor to clean.
- The Earth Avatar before Kyoshi believed the Fire Nation didn't need intervention, so he neglected her for the three others. It forced Fire Avatar Szeto to focus on his birth nation's great struggles, and the rest of the world suffered for it.
- Yangchen was far too trusting and convinced that people would respect their pacts with spirits, forcing Water Avatar Kuruk to hunt far too much dark spirits. Her perceived "betrayal" towards the Fire Nation — she failed to save Princess Akari's life — also seeded the mistrust that would later destroy the Air Nomads.
- Offing the Offspring: What Ozai wants to do with Zuko, as he believes the boy is too soft. He takes after his granddad, since Sozin murdered his own firstborn son and heir for sympathizing with Roku's ideals.
- Polar Opposite Twins: Siniq and Tarkik, from the Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy variety. She wanted to be a warrior, while he studied healing and politics.
- Poor Communication Kills: Iroh wants to open his nephew's eyes and make him understand the Fire Nation is digging itself into a cycle of violence and blood. Zuko wants for his uncle to accept his admiration towards Avatar Yangchen and that the Fire Nation is lying about the war. Neither can bring himself to bluntly talk to the other.
- Put on a Bus: In Irons has this happen to Zuko's original crew after they impress Zhao with how much they've improved under Zuko's command. Since serving under Zuko is supposed to be a punishment, Zhao has most of them reassigned and replaces them with a less competent crew.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Wan Shi Tong first antagonizes Zuko out of mistrust, but nonetheless agrees to let the prince enter the Spirit Library after checking the boy's genuine interest in historical knowledge, concedes he might be overprotective regarding the flying jerboas and later warns his guest about his supplies dwindling out. He also explains what it would mean for Zuko to help restore the Library and seems open to allow the prince back as he informs the youth that the Library is moving around the Si Wong desert.
- Shrinking Violet: Ju Long is terrified by other people, to the point he needs Bun Ma to watch over him.
- Smurfette Principle: Gender inversion with Tarkik, the lone dude in the Yang-gang.
- Stating the Simple Solution: As Iroh is lamenting over Zuko not telling him anything, Bumi pointedly asks if the general has tried to talk with his nephew.
