The Windward was a Kul Tiran two-master that was active very early in Kul Tiras' history and embarked on many journeys to the Eastern Kingdoms and farther beyond. Its crew consisted of some of the most daredevil boys and girls, including the tidesage Ery. Halia the mermaid, who loved watching the human ships, made the Windward her favorite and fell in love with Ery. The sailors were beside themselves each time they saw the mermaid swimming near the ship and begged the captain to let them scare off or kill her, but Ery forbade them. The tidesage instead made Halia into a ship mascot of sorts by always saluting her when the Windward arrived to Boralus and bidding her goodbye when the ship left. Some new crew members tried to jeer at Ery for this, but she silenced them with her hard fists.
The Windward was in port when a great storm came to Boralus, and Ery joined other tidesages in trying to divert the water from the town. The crew of the Windward eventually made their way through the current to try and rescue her, braving not only the storm but also the large number of mermaids darting back and forth and trying to build a seawall; the sailors were almost more frightened of the mermaids than the storm. The tidesage refused to come to her crew, and they could only watch as the mermaids' wall rose under her feet until it towered over the harbor. The sailors kept crying for Ery, but soon started crying more for the mermaids to take pity on themselves and stop their ceaseless work. Eventually, Ery collapsed from exhaustion and fell into the harbor. Her love, the mermaid Halia, dived after her and pulled her to the surface, but she was neither breathing nor moving. The crew of the Windward put out a dinghy and hauled the two onto the deck, where the sailors and other tidesages tried to revive Ery without any luck. Almost nobody protested when Halia used a knife to slit her lover's feet and cried for the sailors to push the two of them over the railing and into the harbor. The crew did so and then began to weep both for their devoted tidesage and for the dead sailors and mermaids who had given their lives to save Boralus. The captain had just given the order to prepare to turn about when Ery surfaced again, alive and transformed into a mermaid.[1]