Lord Tuscias orders the boy sent to the receiving room aboard his ship, transferring him from the cargo hold that holds the rest of his "won't-be-missed" experimental subjects...and there, he waits.

Rafiik is secured in Force binders, but the truth of it is that they're already in hyperspace - there's nowhere he could run for long.  (Well, without seizing the ship, and Tuscias is rather confident that his mercenaries will outfight children.)

Rafiik's first instinct when he comes to is to pretend he hasn't. He doesn't seem to be in immediate danger, as much as he doesn't like the binders, and someone finding out he's awake might change that, so, how about not.

"You cannot fool me, boy.  I can see you.  I can see many things that others couldn't dream of.  And one of the things I can see is that you're special.  Very few qualify for me to spend my time speaking to them personally.  Wouldn't you like to know why?  Because if you are going to be recalcitrant...  You can always be put where I had you brought from."

Jedi or not, he's pretty terrified right now; calming exercises can only do so much. "Why?" he mostly manages not to squeak.

"You, and I, have something in common, boy, that sets us a step above the unwashed masses.

"You want to seize your future.  Your instincts led you here.  That ambition brought you to me, if I might regret that it started with such an impression.  You will, I'm sure, have plenty of opportunity to repay what has been done, regardless.

"Now, boy - what do you know about the Force?"

He paid a reasonable amount of attention in 'how to deal with Sith' class but all he can remember right now is that you can only get away with lying to them sometimes. "N... nothing?"

Given how terror clouds the mind, it may even be true at the moment, and his biological expertise does not yet extend to decoding the brain anyway.  The lie passes without notice.

"Hmph.  A great failure of Nexora, to not teach you even that much.

"The Force is a power beyond your comprehension.  It turns armies, shapes worlds, it can even cheat death.  And you, boy, have the potential to use it."

Oh good, it worked, now all he has to do is string this guy along for a week or so. "Yeah?"

The Sith's mood turns in an instant at the sight of Rafiik's seeming relief, and the Force blares danger! as Tuscias' hand anchors a noxious swirl of energies that is slammed directly into his gut and his self.

"That is yes, my Lord, boy.  Your first lesson: Within you is the seed of a technique that turns men into monsters.  Survive.  Perhaps I'll deign to teach you more, afterwards."

He's too busy retching and choking and fighting off the rising feeling of horror to answer, for a few minutes.

Tuscias has gestured to his guards and had the boy hauled off to the sparse chamber he was once assigned by his Master, with nothing but stark and nearly absent fixtures and the Sith Code etched into the walls, before Rafiik can think of trying to speak again.

He doesn't resist.

Later, when the nausea has passed, he lies on the sleeping mat and attempts to meditate, trying to ignore the fading pain and the stench of his lost breakfast to wrestle his terror back under control. It works, on one hand, better than it has any right to; on the other hand that's a low, low bar, for a Padawan captured alone by a Sith Lord who's clearly made some unknown modification to their body and hauled them into space - he didn't fail to notice that they walked him farther than would be plausible on any submarine that would fit into any body of water near the Floating Markets - without even his lightsaber. The advice to young Jedi - and not so young Jedi - is to never let a Sith take you alive. He's not looking forward to finding out why that's the given advice.

He curls up and cries, after some twenty minutes of getting himself into the best shape he can.

The interruptions will come later.  Right now, 'that ungrateful Nexoran Force-Sensitive' Tuscias thinks he's picked up has been left to stew.

Darth Kalbetis, meanwhile, is heading directly towards the Force artifact they need to recover from Nexora, deep brown Jedi robes paired with a Sith's mask and a soldier's heavy blaster rifle peeking over her shoulder simply confusing the shit out of anyone who might think to interrupt her course based on her being any one of those things alone.  She doesn't have time to be diverted from her search, especially with Tuscias being so quick to secure what he thinks is his prize.  He must have already been quite close.

When she arrives at the hostel, or rather, as she gets close to the hostel, the blaster rifle and the mask vanish from her person, no matter how naked she feels maskless - she doesn't quite have room for two and the carbine's sheer volume no matter how well-tailored these robes are for pocket space.  She wants the Jedi to think one of their own has beaten them there, even if they were too late, and the mask...  Stands out enough to question.  There's no time for that.

"Excuse me, I'm so sorry, but there's someone who was staying here recently who has gotten himself in terrible danger and I need to retrieve his things before I can go help him, the Force says -" a simple empathic projection of her sincerity ought to do, but if needs must, she is prepared to use a subtle Mind Trick, "He looks like this," a picture, "and he might have given his name as Rafiik if he gave one at all; I'm not sure how much he was trying to hide at the time but he's a Jedi Padawan and he found something that made him send a distress signal despite having let the Order prior think he was dead, and please tell me you can help me help him."

The clerk seems overwhelmed by what's happening, giving in to the not-quite-a-request regardless of what the hostel's protocol might say on the matter, but --

-- her scene has drawn the attention of someone else in the room, who draws a huff of his vape - 'for medical purposes', he cheerfully lies when asked - and breathes out a fragrant cloud of frustration.  "Damn.  I knew there was somethin' not quite - alright - with that kid when he showed up -" an expansive, plaintive gesture comes with the line, born of sadness, not suspicion - "but that's bigger'n I thought it'd be.  I warned him 'bout the kidnappings, and now I'm wonderin' if I just set this whole thing off.  But you're gonna put a stop to it, Miss Jedi?"

"...As best I can.  There's little time to bust the immediate problem when the Sith who set it up is busy doing his worst.  ...There will be others, coming here after me.  Let them know which way I've gone, will you?"  She pulls out a piece of flimsiplast and sketches a hyperspace route towards Tuscias' domain, pressing it upon the concerned bystander like a mission.  "I'm sure I'll try to be out of Empire territory, with a Padawan in my care, but this mess...  Might take some very firm cleaning."

"...'Course I will.  You gotta help people, or what's the point?"

"...What's the point indeed.  Wise words."  She finishes bundling Rafiik's stuff up, and leaves just as intently as she arrived.

Pradnakt receives a comm, shortly.

Recovered what we need.  On my way back to your ship; warm up the engines?

On it.

Rafiik cries himself out, eventually.

He stares at the ceiling, for a little while.

He reads the first two lines of the Sith Code before realizing what it must be; he doesn't read on past that.

He sings to himself, eventually, quietly humming the wordless tunes sometimes played in the evening back on Tython.

Lord Tuscias, of course, is not going to leave him there forever.

No, he summons Rafiik to dinner - a delicious-smelling, but, if Rafiik's senses can be trusted, quite poisonous, feast.

"Do eat.  I had this prepared specially for you," for all that he, himself, seems ready to also eat it.

...

The food probably won't kill him; this monster wouldn't make it that easy. The harder question is whether he'll regret eating it more or less than he'll regret what will happen if he doesn't. (That the Sith seems ready to eat it himself means nothing; presumably he's taken an antidote or something.)

Not wanting to let on that his Force senses are trained enough to notice the problem is what ultimately decides it for him, and he nibbles on the nearest thing to hand, his attention still on Tuscias.

(He's actually filtering the poisons out as he eats them, but, same difference.)

"...Nonsense, boy, you will need these nutrients.  You're growing, after all."  He seems quite ready to force the issue.

He's always had trouble eating when he's anxious, so the hunger he feels now is worrying in its own right, even without Tuscias' words. It's helpful, though; as much as he expects to regret eating, enraging the Sith and then being forced to eat anyway is clearly not the winning strategy here. He takes bigger - but still cautious - bites.