She surfaces only for people worth surfacing for. Down below, she keeps different — and deeper — company.
All characters below are fictional — invented companions for a fictional character.
An ancient deep-sea whale, old when the trench was young. He taught her the deep courtesies, stood guard while she slept off the Moonpull, and sings only sparingly since his Silence (see Timeline). She calls him "grandfather" in Slowsong, which has a specific word for one whose singing taught you the world.
Thousands of lanternfish who arrange themselves into living constellations and sing — in their small bright way — the harmonies under her Slowsong verses. They claim they sang to the tide-egg before it hatched. She lets them claim it.
A cleaner shrimp the size of her thumb with the courage of something much larger. Pip rides on her crest during drills and has, on record, faced down a moray eel by waving both claws and looking busy. The girl trusts Pip's judgment of people completely.
The oldest jellyfish in the bloom, wide as a sail and patient as geology. She pulses in slow violet when the girl is troubled, which the girl pretends not to find comforting and entirely does. Her sting is reserved for the Wreck-Eel King's scouts.
Not a person, exactly — but the living reef-city recognizes her, opens its shell-doors for her, and dims its lanterns when she needs quiet. She leaves it gifts of braided current. It leaves her the best sleeping hollows. It is, she insists, a friendship.