Tim

Artist - Tim has a PhD in Art History from USC and a Bachelor of Art from UCLA.
Southern Californian - It's not 'I-5' it's just 'the 5', man.
Kashmiri - Tim is mixed race Kashmiri, and was taught the language by his father growing up.
Forger - Maybe because he's an artist, or maybe in spite of it, Tim is particularly good at making fake IDs, passports, etc. He's even pretty good at faking signatures.
Ambidextrous - Tim can use either hand as his dominant hand.
Knitter - He knits. You laugh, but who's going to be cozy when it's raining sideways and 33 degrees? THIS GUY.

Born on the winter solstice in 1987 in the fine city of Los Angeles, Tim is the son of a concert pianist and a museum curator. It's no surprise, then, that he went into UCLA's Arts program; although he learned piano from his father, he wound up focusing on visual arts, specifically watercolor and calligraphy. During his college years he'd come to the attention of people who were keenly interested in how good he was at forging things: signatures, documents, even paintings. They liked it a lot, and paid him well for a variety of jobs, most of them illegal. It's about the only secret he's ever kept from his parents. He went on to get a PhD in Art History from USC. Things seemed perfect. He had a teaching position at a community college, and enjoyed showing his work and small, local galleries while supplementing his income with his forgery work.

The following summer following Tim's 30th birthday, on a camping trip with his friends in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, it happened: he was coming back a solo walk just at sunset, and the paths in the campground twisted around him. He found himself lost in a forest he didn't recognize, under a purple and gray sky scattered with orange stars, hounded by creatures he couldn't see, only hear and smell and feel.

It seemed to go on for days. He took shelter in what looked like a small cave, refused to come out. When the rescue teams finally found him, crammed into the hollow of a tree, his clothes ragged and his body covered with scratches, he was half out of his mind and half dead from exposure. And he couldn't explain what had happened.

He was in the hospital for a week, and in therapy for months after that, mostly at the insistence of his parents. No one believed him when he said what had happened; they blamed it on drugs. That he was known to have dipped his toes in the seedier side of LA life didn't help in this regard. Hurt and angry, he quit his teaching job, took to forging and making fake IDs full time. He avoided his parents, bitter at their refusal to believe him.

But the thing was, his mother did believe him. She'd just never told Tim, or his father, that she wasn't from Hoaquim, as she'd always said, but from Gray Harbor. Joanna Menhir had fled the city after her first Glimmering at 18 and never looked back. She'd moved in with her Aunt and Uncle in Southern California, gone to school there, married there, had her son there, and that was that.

The Menhirs have been in the region for over a hundred years, not always specifically within Gray Harbor but orbiting it, tied to it by the Glimmer running through their veins. When Tim made it clear to his 30th birthday without a single sign of being able to use the power she saw in him, Joanna had assumed he was home free. How wrong she'd been.

As Tim's condition failed to improve, Joanna gave in and called her older sister, Rhoda, who still lived in the area, her weathered shack a stone's throw from the high tide mark. Rhoda suggested Tim visit, and though Joanna hated the idea of her son coming near Gray Harbor, she agreed. Tim went to visit Rhoda, and gradually he began to improve. The frustration and anger eased as his proximity to Gray Harbor allowed his Glimmer to properly take shape. As each day passed he could feel that the answers he needed were in Gray Harbor--not LA.

He moved to the area six months ago. His mother begged him to change his mind, but Tim refused. He's taken a position teaching Art classes at WSU-Hoaquim, mostly as a cover for what really pays the bills, which is that he forges documents. Most of his work comes out of Seattle via networking with his LA clients, but he's not picky; he'll make what needs making.

He knows there's an answer to what happened to him in the mountains. He knows. And he's going to find out.

Lanky and average height, Tim sports a head of thick black hair with a mind of its own, a neatly trimmed, black beard, and heavy black brows. His skin is coppery brown, his nose is long and broad, and his deep-set eyes are a brown so dark they almost match his hair. He has an easy-going demeanor, a mellow smile always at the ready. He tends towards casual outfits--t-shirts, jeans or khakis, and Vans or Converse. He can be cajoled into a suit, and for some reason has a few very nice ones, hinting at money somewhere in his background.