That gives him some small pause that turned into quiet consideration. His eyes went back to the designs, his thumb running over the lines and ridges with a touch more understanding.

He couldn't pretend to understand what that meant to Alaric, to have his trappings and responsibilities at home as something bindingly worn about his neck. It was enough that, given nothing else, Anders might have gone back on the suggestion entirely for not want to...overstep? Overstep or presume.

But it wasn't all Alaric had said, he'd said he'd liked the idea of it having a new meaning. A meaning here instead of the meaning it had before being lorded over him. He nodded and looked back to Alaric with a small smile. "Then may I put this on you before you go out for the day? Or, if I am to be gone before you, may I take up my own little ritual? Something to affirm it's meaning for us?" An image came to him, a kiss to the metal and a kiss to Alaric, a small affirmation that it meant what it was supposed to mean: but for them alone. Something to remind them until the symbol of it was changed in them as well as just verbally.