"Ten seconds. Ten seconds is the only amount of time that I can spare you," Thresh said to the Arrow of Retribution, who looked towards Thresh's lantern with a certain longing. The archer normally didn't show anything in his expression, though Thresh could see that Varus truly wanted, perhaps needed, this. It involved his dear beloved wife after all, sweet Elena, his lover that was cruelly taken away from him after a Noxian invasion on his village. Ever since that day, Varus became one with the corruption that thrived underneath his skin, eating away and corroding him like a cancer. It grew stronger day by day, and Thresh could sense that about the white-haired man. Varus figured that he had nothing else to lose—and truly, everything had been taken away from him that day. There was nothing left but the corruption that continually festered with malice and hatred.
"Do you understand the consequences of this?" The Chain Warden asked of the Arrow of Retribution, and Varus nodded in response. He understood the terms and conditions that were laid out before him, to contact his deceased wife. Thresh made it perfectly clear what would happen. In exchange for her freedom, Varus would relinquish his own and one day become part of the Lantern that Thresh carried with him. An eternity of damnation and woe, with lamenting souls crying for their freedom, their escape from the Lantern. Thresh personally didn't understand the sentiment of this gesture—the Chain Warden didn't know what the concept of love was. But Varus felt it was worth the sacrifice, and Thresh wouldn't begrudge him for that. After all, it was in Thresh's interest to claim the Arrow of Retribution as his own.
"Very well," Thresh said as the spectral flames surrounding his head wriggled with the screaming souls of the damned within. "What do you wish to say to Elena?"
The archer took a deep breath, and with a trembling hand, he held the precious pendant that he wore around his neck. Thresh could see that the knuckles turned white from pressure, and Varus knew that everything weighed down upon him at this very moment. Years worth of unsaid words pressured up inside the Archer, along with the stolen "I love you' in-between kisses and making love, in the small tender moments that the couple shared with one another, and Varus said what he wanted to say after living with the deep burning regret of choosing to guard the temple over his own family.
"I'm sorry that I've forsaken you, Elena," Varus said. There was more, there wasn't enough time to express his sentiments towards the soul stuck inside Thresh's lantern, though Varus found himself opening up more and more as he began reliving the moment of the Noxian attack. "I'm sorry that I've forsaken you and our son."
The lantern swirled and revealed a phantasmal mirage of the woman that he loved before him. Varus felt his breath catch in his throat, before he walked forward and reached out a hand towards her. Of course, she was incorporeal, and he couldn't touch her like he could when she alive. She parted away like mist, before he took his hand away and she rematerialized back into her fragile form.
"I forgive you, my love," the specter of his lover said, and Thresh saw tears streaming down the man's cheeks. How long he must have held in those tears, while he was suffering in silence with the corruption inside him. They came unbidden, and Varus stepped forward as though he wanted to embrace the wraith that was tentatively tied to the material world.
"I love you," he managed to choke out, before Thresh released the spirit from its ties in the lantern. The spirit evaporated and became one with everything, from the trees, to land, to the air, to the very breath that one intakes. She was gone now and her soul could rest in peace. Varus reached out towards the space that the spectral being danced and wavered in front of him. He stopped crying by then, though his eyes were red from the tears he shed. Thresh had remained silent this entire time, though once this transaction was over, Thresh moved forward to put a gauntleted hand on Varus's shoulder. Not out of comfort, but of possession.
"I own you," Thresh said. Varus nodded, stupefied from everything that took place, and came with the sudden realization of what he had done. There was no despair from the archer, but a simple resignation that his fate belonged to the Chain Warden. He usually liked it when his prisoner's struggled and screamed, cursing Thresh with their very breaths. The archer didn't do such things, simply turned to look at Thresh. This was a man who truly had nothing else to lose.
"She's free," Varus said simply, as though his own life didn't matter in the grand scheme of things. All he cared about was his wife being free from the lantern that shackled her.
"Was it really worth the sacrifice, Varus? To bind your soul to mine? I guess you could even call us soulmates now," Thresh said with a humorless chuckle as he finally removed his hand from Varus's shoulder and began to stalk the ghostly atmosphere of the Shadow Isles. Varus followed behind Thresh, wondering what the rest of the eternity would be like. Eternity was a very long time, though Varus could spare an eternity for his beloved wife.