Beacon's arches welcome her home, curved arcs of metal stretching into the sky like arms reaching for god, trying to seek solace in the expanse of the sky. They tower above her head, dominating and intimidating to those who have not walked beneath them for years of their lives; and she does not count amongst them, her path beneath the iron skeleton worn into the ground, the crossing beneath the metal framework now a familiar motion held in her soul.

She walks the cobblestones of the academy's paths like a widow pacing along a rooftop balcony, the action no longer requiring contemplation. She does not wait for her husband to return, but she does wait for others to find their own ways back under the metal arches, passing beneath the arms that reach for god. The dust and dirt that settles across the stones beneath her feet is upset by her boots, sent into spirals behind her from the red cape that hangs across her shoulders. The world around her shifts slightly as she makes her way across the campus, and she pays it no mind.

Beacon has been the place she returns to for years now, finding her way back into the comforting scenery she truly grew up in, where motions of death and courage became as familiar as the lines in the palms of her hands. The school houses those alumni who feel the need to return; as hunters and huntresses, the graduates rarely make their way back to their roots, if they make their ways back anywhere at all. The ones who return to the cobblestone paths and iron arches are few, but they are welcomed when they do arrive, by the open arms of staff, students, and arches alike.

There are not many places for Ruby to return to; once, she would make her way home to Patch, but that was before she found a different family in the classrooms and cafeterias of Beacon. It was a family that wasn't bound by blood, but adversity, and one she wouldn't trade for the world. Patch is still a place to return to, a place where Summer's grave stood in wait for the daughter who had carried on, but it is only that way for Ruby and her sister. Atlas and places beyond the confines of the kingdoms hold the early roots of the rest of her family; they are not places to return to, but rather, places to avoid.

So it is to Beacon that Ruby returns, as does the rest of her patchwork family, when their own jobs are finished and the hunts have ended. It is Beacon that calls them back, and where they find the small family that was formed years ago, waiting in the small dormitory that Beacon graciously provides. Ruby returns home first, on this occasion, finding an empty room that has a layer of dust across its surfaces – they have been gone for far too long, and the residence proves it.

But the woman does not mind; it is not the first time she has been the only one in the apartment, nor will it be the last. So Ruby cleans to pass the time, and waits with great patience for the rest of her team, her family, to pass beneath the iron arches, cross the familiar cobblestones, and return to her.

She waits for them to return home.

The definition of 'home' changes for them all. It has never been the same; their childhoods, which formed the foundation of the meaning of the word for them all, differed greatly. They did not grow up in the same places, nor under the same care. The conventions they were raised with only slightly alter their perceptions of the word – but their experiences from the past shape it more, memories and moments of years gone by changing what they viewed as 'home.' It wasn't something they discussed, nor really shared with one another, but they did acknowledge the differences, when the glaring inequalities presented themselves to the four.

For Weiss, a home is not a structure, nor a set place – though she shares that with most of them – but rather a concept, an ethereal refuge set beyond the physical realm, hidden from those who seek to see it before them. Home does not entail endless rooms and doorways that open them, nor hallways lined with portraits of ancestors who lived her legacy before she was around to do so; those characteristics belong to a house, one that a small girl with white hair and eyes as bright as a summer's sky dwelled in years ago.

Buildings and structures hold only the meaning of 'house,' never 'home.' To Weiss, who spent her childhood in empty rooms with high ceilings and wide expanses of loneliness, papered walls and marble floors mean nothing in sentiment, in belonging. Her definition of home arises from the lack of one, back when she was a child – back when the nods of acknowledgment were the most care she received from her father, when her twin drifted away from her, leaving their only bond their blood and date of birth. Back when Weiss was still growing up, no red raised line splitting her brow and crossing over her eyelid, she learned the definition of home from a heavy tome in their vast library – and quickly decided that "house," she had, but "home" she did not.

And so, years later, when the small child had grown up alone in an empty building – by which there was not an absence of people, as servants filled the halls, but rather of love, of warmth, despite the many hearths inside the house – when Weiss had found her own definition of home, she found the family who brought it to her.

For Weiss, home was not a structure, but rather a place of welcome, where one could be themself and be loved for it, as they were. It was not an expanse of hallways and housings, of empty libraries and dining halls – home could be found in any place, so long as the people who made it were around. Home could not be found in the viewable world; it was something one felt, one understood through the warmth and love around them.

Home was somewhere she knew she belonged; home was where a girl with silver eyes, a girl with golden hair, and a girl with tufted ears all accepted her for who she was, who she had become. They did not ask for change where it was unnecessary; there were no expectations for Weiss to arise to, aside from basic human decency.

Weiss was still cold to the touch some days, still nursing her glass heart, afraid to show it to the world lest it be shattered. But they did not ask her to let them in when they knew she held her doors shut; they let her drift through the hallways of the dorm, and let her know that she was still welcome regardless, that their arms would remain open whether she pushed them away or let them in.

And it is those same, open arms that greet her one evening, a pair of familiar arms that extend from cloaked shoulders, reaching to pull her in. Her company and her hunts have kept Weiss away from home for a while, and she knows the others are the same – she hadn't expected for anyone to be waiting to greet her, lest of all the silver-eyed girl, who was usually the last to return home.

She wasn't about to complain, though – especially not when Ruby calls her name loud enough to rouse the student dormitory a little bit away from them, and hugs her tight enough to remind her that yes, ribs are indeed fragile bones. The red cloak swirls around them, a warmth that draws her in and protects her from the cold of the outside world, even chases away the chill that sits inside her heart. The pair stands in the doorway in silence for a moment, letting the embrace say what words cannot; both have been away from home for far too long.

And it is in Ruby's arms, in the warmth of the room and the body holding hers close, that Weiss feels home return. She feels it in the welcoming embrace, in the reminder that someone is waiting for her, that amongst her patchwork family she is wanted, even needed. She can feel the child inside her fade away, the one who waits for her family to make their house into a home; years ago Weiss set her past apart from her current self, her new family helping her to let go.

It is a member of that family who reminds her that she finally, at long last, has the home she always dreamed of. It is Ruby who holds her close, lets the ethereal walls build themselves up around the pair in the doorway, who lets the white-clothed girl who passed underneath the same iron arches feel like she belongs there, lets Weiss remember that she will always be loved and welcomed by the patchwork family who came together years ago.

In Ruby's arms, in the warm doorway of the room she so often returns to, of the house that waits for the second half of the family to return like the rest, that Weiss feels the worries and stresses lift from her shoulders, feels the last doubt of not being welcome drift away.

She is home.

Blake had never understood the concept of a 'home' the way the others did, her definition formed in a childhood of running, of changing neighborhoods and safe houses, of violence and retreat. Her home and first family had been lost years before, a remnant of a life that could have been gone with the first sweep of death in her life, taking away the parents and the home that they had held.

'Home' had just been another word in her vocabulary, one she learned from the few books she had gathered from dumpsters and donations, hidden away in safe places for her to return to; collections of weapons and food were stolen immediately, but no one disturbed the stack of novels. At first, Blake had read house and home as synonymous, the words interchangeable – it was only when Adam arrived that she realized the two were worlds apart.

For Blake, back when bloody hands were a common sight and the call to clear out was a weekly, if not daily occurrence, the thought of a house was even more rare than that of a home. To the small Faunus who had not yet learned to hide her ears within a ribbon, houses were places of refuge and shelter, ones that changed without warning, with the arrival of police and angry civilians. She had lived in many places, each torn down around her – tent cities and fires in oil drums beneath bridges were common sights for the girl.

She did not assign a meaning to "home" until she was older, until she found herself standing to fight for what she believed in. Houses became more common, then, supporters of the White Fang offering up bedrooms and spare beds for the activists who rallied day after day. Her definition of home flitted alongside that of house, and for a while she used the two freely, the moment of peace in her life a rarity. Adam appeared often then, the older boy a sort of brother to the girl, a protector and mentor all wrapped into one.

Home became Adam, in some ways – on the nights he left for the empty streets, Blake did not sleep as well, wondering where he had gone. Those were the nights that her dwelling was a house alone, and home left her vocabulary. That was how things were for a while; drifting from place to place, her shelter changing frequently, a different face welcoming her back every time. It remained that way for a short period in her life; then the shift arrived, one that changed both the direction of the White Fang and her definition of home forever.

With violence and anger came a lack of protection; people no longer welcomed them into their houses for the evenings, those who did being labeled traitors and supporters. Shelter and refuge was scarce, police and vigilante citizens tearing through the slums, throwing out the innocent and guilty alike. Houses were associated with safe houses – which were decidedly unsafe, and more simply 'undiscovered' – and Blake found herself drifting once more from place to place, her definition of home changing with her life.

Home was no longer a place with Adam; it wasn't a settled place or person, nor was it entirely an actual refuge. Home, to Blake, to the girl who woke up in the middle of the night from shouts and calls to abandon the location, meant safety. It meant a place where she didn't need to do perimeter checks, where there was no need to take shifts and watch out windows, examining the empty streets for threats that only came knocking in the night. Home was not dragging people and belongings from fires set to drive them away, nor was it gathering around a lit oil drum on the colder nights, attempting to chase the night's chill from their bones.

Home was safety, and safety, to the girl with ears that now lay beneath a ribbon, was no longer something entirely attainable. Years in the White Fang continued that definition, the thought of a home outside of Blake's grasp. It remained that way for a long time, even when she reached Beacon – there were nights when she still could not sleep in the confines of the dormitory, eyes watching the shadows on the walls, waiting to see a silhouette with riot shields, watching for signs of a lit torch in the cobblestone paths down below.

Home did not come easily to the Faunus, and it took years of gentle words of reassurance to remind her that it was an attainable thing; the thought that home was possible for a girl who had grown up running finally occurred to her on a cold night in fourth year, when her golden-haired partner had curled up beside her, wrapping her arms tight around the Faunus to keep her warm. It had been in that embrace, next to the pyre that never seemed to go out in her partner's soul, safe in arms that could crush bones and still hold loved ones gently, that Blake had finally believed once more in the concept of a home.

It still took time after that for her to come to terms with the realization; understandably, it was not an instantaneous thing to accept. Years without a "home" were not easy to overcome, but Blake slowly did so, letting the thought of safety back into her heart. Home returned to her in time, found in the three people who fought alongside her, protecting her back at all times, guarding her when necessary, keeping her safe when she needed it most. They understood in their own ways her need for safety, and slowly Blake found it in them, found that she felt the safest when the warmth of her partner was spreading throughout the room, when Ruby's optimism kept the atmosphere light, when Weiss's voice spread from a nearby room back to the rest them.

Home came from safety, and safety from the three idiots who never stopped mocking one another – and it is to that safety, that home that Blake returns to one evening, crossing familiar cobblestones and underneath metal arches, making her way up to a doorway she's passed through for years. The moment she enters the hallway, however, they've already sensed her presence – and Ruby crashes from the room, shouting her name as she launches herself in an embrace at the Faunus. Ever prepared – and by now well used to the redhead's antics – Blake catches her easily, holding the woman in return before making her way to the room, finding a familiar heiress inside.

Greetings are exchanged, Weiss doing her best to keep down the wide smile that threatened to break her façade (and inevitably failing), before Blake takes a moment to stand in silence in the room, letting her eyes and ears take in the familiar atmosphere. Out of habit, she glances at the features she'd put in place years ago – wires strung in specific locations, tiny traps hidden out of sight; measures put in place years ago, both here and in safe houses of the past.

Ruby and Weiss don't speak, knowing better than to interrupt the Faunus as she goes through the familiar ritual – several minutes pass before perked ears relax, alert eyes blinking in relief. The room is safe, nothing broken into or disturbed in their absence – the thought of someone doing so is unlikely, especially at the combat school, but it's a habit Blake finds hard to break. Seeing the Faunus relax, Ruby and Weiss both react – the redhead breaks into a wide grin, the heiress smiling softly – and begin speaking, letting their words fall into familiar conversations, catching one another up on things they've missed, waiting for the last member of their patchwork family to return.

The atmosphere is well-known, a welcomed presence that eases the tension in Blake's muscles, the Faunus feeling her walls slowly come down as the pair before her bicker fondly. There is no safer place than here, she knows, than with her lovable idiots and their familiar antics, than in the safety of three well trained women with weapons that can blow the heads off of monsters three times their size. The safety she longed for growing up can be found in spades here, amongst the family she found in the last place she had run away to. Blake smiles, letting her soft laughter fill the room, the sound welcome and warm.

She is home.

Some definitions change throughout the years, while others stay the same – and for Yang, "home" falls into the latter. For as long as she can remember, the definition of home has remained unchanged, learnt through the fairy tales read to her by Summer, that she read to Ruby in turn. Many things in the blonde's life have changed over the years, but the meaning of home somehow remained the same, despite everything that created it undergoing changes of their own.

Her definition of home had been formed when she was far too young to doubt or reconsider the meaning she had been told – it was given to her through stories read by Summer, through her father's laughter and Qrow's quiet chuckles, through Ruby's smiles. Home, to Yang, meant love and warmth and laughter – to the small girl with pigtails and a grin that missed several teeth, home was where the heart was happy.

Her house, at the time, was a home – Summer's love and laughter filled the halls, her father's love letters intermingling with his strong lifts, making his daughters feel as though they could fly. Qrow's quiet presence added to the home as well, and the love in the air was an almost tangible thing, a warm blanket that enshrouded all of their shoulders. Yang grew up, for a while, believing that her home could never leave.

Then it did, and though her definition of a home never faded, the presence of it in her life did – ripped away by the skeletal fingers of death, the tendrils of doubt and despair stealing away the love and warmth that filled her life, replacing the laughter with a silence that sank into the depths of her soul. The remnants of the home she once held were ghosts in the corners of the house, teasing her with shadows that danced on the walls, reminiscent of the past they could never have again.

With her mother – not the one who raised her, but the one who ran – came the shaking realization that her home was gone entirely, that the happiness she'd once held had left Yang for good. And with the near death of her sister, from a foolish act of her own volition, had come the understanding that Yang no longer had the home she desperately wanted – but that Ruby could still have one. Her father had become a shell of his former self, Summer's light no longer filled the home, and Qrow was but a shadow that flitted through the halls – but Yang still had love in her heart, and a sister she could give it to.

Home to Yang became something she could give, and not have – and to her, home still meant a place of warmth and light. Home was a place where love thrived, and while she no longer associated it closely with house, she didn't completely rule out the presence of a tangible structure in her definition. But to her, first and foremost, home was where love grew, where one felt the warmth and light of affection the strongest. To Yang, keeping that home alive was most important for her sister, and she did not let herself fail in that – whether she herself had a home or not did not matter; she would let herself be a home for those she cared about.

And so she gave away her love in spades, letting the warmth of her flames and the hearth that held her heart spread on to those she met, those she took into caring arms. Most of the love never returned to her, the people she cared about taking refuge in the home she gave them, but not becoming a shelter for her in return. Ruby was, at first, the only exception to the rule – eventually her father made his way back in, Qrow pulling him behind him. Her small, shaken family took a long time to find themselves once more, but they became a home for Yang once again, albeit nothing like they were before.

But Yang's true home returned to her in the form of a sister who fought her affections, but hugged her back all the same. It came in the form of a partner who held more secrets than could be contained, and somehow understood everything Yang told her, slowly sharing her own past in return. It came in the form of a girl who bickered and occasionally even brawled with the blonde, but still understood the draw to family, and the loss of one that Yang had gone through. It was in the three women who made her patchwork family, scraps of worn fabric sewn together with adversity and understanding, that Yang felt the love she gave away begin to return to her.

Yang had been the first to see them as a family, and had unconditionally given away her warmth and light to them, but she was the last to finally view them as a home. It took a while, but the pyre in her heart was fed by the three women that stayed beside her, giving her back the warmth and light she lent to them. Her definition of home she gave to them all, and it made its way back to her – and for the first time since Summer had left, Yang truly felt at home with them.

It is to that home, the one formed of light and warmth and love, that Yang returns on an evening, when the cobblestones leave scuffs on the toes of her boots, and the last of the day's light reflects off the metal arches. She makes her way to the old wooden door, and before she can open the metal handle herself, the wood swings open, revealing three grinning women behind it. Yang laughs as she catches her sister's embrace, the redhead having grown like a weed during her years at Beacon, but never fully catching up with her sister – the blonde rests her chin on Ruby's head as she revels in the familiar warmth of her sister's embrace.

Blake joins them a moment later, ears perked in happiness as she hugs her partner and her teammate – Weiss watches from a distance, smiling in both amusement and exasperation, until Yang reaches out an arm and pulls her into the hug, laughter sounding in the air. The brawler holds her family close to her heart (Weiss tries to tap out, eventually), and keeps them there for a moment, closing her eyes and feeling the warmth of their bodies against hers. It's a tangible feeling of home, in some ways – and Yang can feel the love she has given away return to her, feels the warmth spread through her veins, feels the hearth in her heart glow with light.

She is home.

Laughter fills the room, spilling underneath the door to spread into the hallway – not for the first time, Ruby is thankful that they have the floor to themselves, that there isn't a JNPR across the hall this time to come to tell them to keep it down and let them sleep. The sounds of happiness emanate from her teammates – the loud, barking laughter from Yang; the bell like chuckles from Blake; the inelegant snickers and snorts from Weiss. It's a familiar cacophony, one that fills Ruby's heart with contentment.

It's been a while since they were all together, crossing beneath the metal arches that reach for the sky, footsteps echoing off building fronts as feet wander across familiar cobblestones. The dusty room has been cleaned, Weiss finding the spots Ruby had missed, then re-cleaning what the redhead had already done. Warmth emanates from the fireplace, courtesy of the blonde, though the heat from the fire pales in comparison to that of the brawler.

The sun long ago dipped down beyond the skyline, the familiar shattered moon rising into the sky as lamps were lit, flames flickering in glass enclosures. The light dances across the expanses of their cheeks, shadows pooling in the corners of their eyes, making the laughter lines there more apparent. Their rapid chatter flows endlessly, covering a vast array of topics – from memories of Beacon to more current events, reminding of what was and explaining what is. Stories from latest hunts entertain one another, and tales grow more and more unbelievable as they describe their exploits from each hunt, trying to top one another. When Yang holds her hands out to indicate the size of an Ursa's head, they break into giggles, comfortable in the amusement of one another.

Ruby talks the least of them all, basking in the warmth that fills the room, a weight as familiar and comfortable as the warm red cloak that rests atop her shoulders. She watches the expressions on the faces of her family, seeing Yang's mouth split into a huge grin at the indignant look on Weiss's face, amusement and disbelief painting themselves onto Blake's features. It's been a long time since she's seen them this way, all together, the weight of the world shared amongst them, the burdens on their shoulders lifted.

Ruby knows of each of their definitions of home, not that they've ever told her – she's far more perceptive than she makes herself out to be, and years of living with the three women have allowed her to pick up on their individual meanings of the word. Each of them have some small understanding of one another's' definition, though none quite like Ruby – the redhead knows them all, knows what they view as home.

It's why she makes sure to greet Weiss with open arms, rushing ahead to make sure that the heiress isn't the first to return to their shared dwelling – on occasions where she knows Yang or Blake will make it back first, she does not hurry home the same. But the rest of the times, she makes it back before Weiss can, making sure there is someone there to welcome her home – someone who reminds her that she is welcome amongst them, that she is missed in her absence, and that someone is waiting for her to return.

It's why she resets all of Blake's traps, the ones that are disturbed by troublesome students and the rattling of windowpanes on stormy nights – danger never falls on their dormitory, but sometimes tricksters and trouble does, dares from students and strong gusts of wind snagging traps and wires. She knows what safety means to the Faunus, and makes sure that the room remains how she left it, makes sure it still remains a safe place for the woman who checks behind the paintings when she thinks no one is looking.

It's why she launches herself at Yang without fail, and does not pull away when her sister hugs her tight enough to make her bones creak with pressure, letting Yang be the one who decides when to let go. She is the one to start the inevitable embrace of the four, the one that is initiated when the last of them arrives – when Yang holds them as though they are her tether in a storm, the anchor to her ship out at sea – and lets the blonde feel the warmth, the love return to her, reminds her that she has a home amongst them, just as she gives them one.

Home to Ruby, however, is not the same as the other three. Out of all of them, she associates a place, a building, a structure with home the most – though the shelter, she knows, can change. Whether it is a dormitory room, an abandoned ruin, an empty classroom, anything, Ruby knows that the shelter itself is far less important than the fact that it exists at all. In some ways, it need not even be a structure at all – it could be a person, a statue, a grave. All it needs to do is fill one specific need – the need that Ruby builds her own definition around.

Home, to Ruby, is a place to which to return.

It always has been that way, ever since she lost her mother – Summer never returned to their house, all those years ago, and the cold dark evening she realized that her mother was not coming home was the evening on which her definition was set in stone, engraved in her bones like the words on her mother's headstone. She could remember watching her father fall apart, Qrow withdrawing from their lives slowly, seeing Yang try and fill the spaces that were empty – she was too young to understand everything, back then, but years later the wisdom she gained made clear the events of the past.

Home, to Ruby, was a place that people returned to. It did not mean a single house or building, necessarily, but more often than not, that's what home manifested itself in – her house on Patch, for a long time, was her home. Yang returned from Signal, Qrow from his hunts, her father from his depression. Over the years, that had changed, from their dormitory in Beacon's student building, to the alumni dorm they inhabited now.

Home was where Weiss cleaned every last object in the rooms, bringing with her glyphs to stand on as she dusted the ceiling corners. Home was where Blake tried to read beside the fire until dawn, though the embers always coaxed her into the waiting arms of sleep long before the sun could rise, her partner draping a blanket over her in the middle of the night. Home was where Yang made scrapbooks and picture albums at the table, finding newspaper articles and embarrassing photos that she documented forever, much to the displeasure of the rest of them.

Home was where Ruby returned after every hunt, and where her small, makeshift family did the same, returning to the dorm with ripped clothes and dirty faces, with stories and tales from afar. Where they returned to was not the important part – Beacon was their current place of reunion, but Ruby knew that would eventually change – what mattered was the fact that they returned at all. And return they always did, moths to a flame, travellers coming back home from a long trip, crossing worn paths and underneath metal arches to do so.

Home, Ruby believes, is where they return to, and the fact that in the end, they return at all. Home, for her, is brought into her life when they are together in moments like this one, when laughter and conversations fill the usually silent room, when they build blanket forts and stay up all night sharing stories from one another's absences. It is when Yang falls asleep in said fort, and Weiss decides the best course of action is to pile more pillows and blankets atop her to muffle the snoring. It is when the heiress falls asleep on Blake's shoulder, the Faunus herself following the woman in sleep a little while later, resting her head atop Weiss's. It is when Ruby is left to blow out the flickering candles and lamps, leaving one on atop the fireplace, to chase away nightmares and serve as a light when one of them wakes up shaking in the darkness.

It is when she falls asleep in the warmth and company of the patchwork family that has gone through adversity and arguments and injuries, and still finds it within themselves to make their ways back to Beacon without fail. And Ruby, the first to arrive and the last to fall asleep, lets herself and her family find their definitions of home in one another, seeking the meanings that they'd looked for all their lives. To the presence of cobblestone paths and metal framework that reaches up towards a shattered moon, Ruby and her family return.

They are home.