So, about Zenos... (SPOILERS)

[KageTokage]

I thought his avatar was just some piece of Varis or something kept around or an avatar like ours, just leveled up and evolved.

Did Yoshi-P really subtly hint that thing might be one of our shards? :O

He said something along the lines of "it could be interesting if it turned out to be an alternate version of our WoL", which was prefaced with mention of how Zenos takes the whole "one and only friend" really seriously.

That made me think that given his ability to perceive soul color he could've realistically located our shard somehow and chosen it to serve as his avatar. Yoshi also recently mentioned that he couldn't go into specifics of how he became a reaper in the live letter Q&A so there's definitely something important about it.

Avatars are essentially just a manifestation of an actual voidsent's power being channeled from across the rift to us, but nonetheless possess enough of a connection to their pact-bearers to potentially seize control of them in a moment of weakness or their death.