Okay, it's like this:  

  Hyacinth and Heather know each other from way back in the good old
days.  Hyacinth went and married Noah, but the Clan doesn't strictly
acknowledge "marraige" in the Realm sense.  Meanwhile, Charity has
discovered that her dad's old farm is the site of a powerful locus of
mana, where she could increase her power by orders of magnitude.  As
elder sister, she stands to inherit by Clan law, and although she is a
resident of the Realm she isn't a Citizen..  Noah's dad brought him up
on charges of court- martial for consorting with the enemy, and
Charity is toying with accusing Hyacinth of betraying the Clan's
secrets to an outsider.

  Things get convoluted here.  

 1) If Hyacinth and Noah get bonded in a formal Clan ceremony, Noah
becomes officially a member of the Clan.  He's then not an outsider,
and Hyacinth cannot be disinherited.  However, Noah is no longer a
Realm citizen (part of the bonding ceremony states quite clearly that
all ties to other lands are now void), meaning he is subject to the
Internal Security Act.  He would probably lose his job as Guard, but
he couldn't be courtmartialed unless the Realm insisted on considering
him a citizen (in which case he would retain his job until the
courtmartial, *and* become the first person in history to be a
national of *both* countries...)

 2) If Hyacinth is disinherited, she loses all rights to the farmland.
However, if she can become a Realm citizen (any judicial authority can
authorize this) then it's possible for her to try the case in a Realm
court, which may declare her sole management of the territory (which
lies on the border between these two nations and is thus conceivably
disputed territory) to constitute ownership.  This would not change
anything the Clan does, but if Charity takes it she could be tried for
theft under Realm law [being a Realm resident and merchant], and thus
forced to return it.  Of course, if she can become a Realm citizen,
then Noah can't really be tried for consorting with the enemy...

 3) Of course, anyone could appeal to Kalerege, but since the "crime"
didn't occur on the Castle, his jurisdiction is limited.  It is likely
to end up in the hands of a joint meeting of the Peers and the
Clasp...which in and of itself would be interesting...and of course
any of this has the potential of screwing up the peace talks something
fierce.

 4) And well, there's always the duel of honor...

um, I know longer know what the hell is happening with this.  So I
think I'll confuse the issue some more with a plot-twist cj thought up.

There's this legendary item called the Idol of Corinth.  It's a huge
chunk of mythril (roughly 80 pounds of it), enchanted through some
unknown fashion to be attuned simultaneously to Gaea, Tualoha and
Chthon.  It is a touchstone to great power--in essence a one-way deva
portal with a built-in mana supply and a cybernetic link.  What that
amounts to in game terms is that anyone touching the Idol and
concentrating on a spell can cast that spell.  They do not have to
know the spell, only know of it.  So for example, you could touch it
and say "I want that item destroyed," and it would happen--or "I want
gold," or anything else a spell exists for.

Hyacinth's dad had it, and realizing the potential for dangerousness
he kept its existence secret.  He kept it in the family crypt, where
it remans.  Hyacinth would often go to the crypt and complain about
her problems to her daddy's grave, so she kept using the idol without
knowing it, to make the land more fertile, etc.  That's why the land
is magickal.  In any case, the idol can be summoned through kknowledge
of its truename, which is embedded into Hyacinth's and Charity's
memories.  

***really evil thought:  what happens if she leans up against it and
thinks "I really wish you were alive, daddy, I miss you so much..."
????

All files in the directory /mit/abstract/Archives/Old_castles, and all files
in any subdirectories thereof, and any materials in the "abstract" locker 
pertaining to the game "Castles in the Sky" as run for the MIT Assassin's
Guild in the Spring of 1989 are copyright to Andrea Brandford and David 
Policar and are not available for public use or viewing.