Cohost writing prompt: @Making-up-Monsters — Monster who knows exactly how to solve this problem. All you need is 10 goats. Or was that groats? Geats, maybe? Hm.
"This is my bridge," says the troll.
"Fuck off," the gaggle of schoolkids say disbelievingly. "This bridge hasn't got a troll. My ma says it hasn't had a troll since she was little. It's on our way home—"
The troll — eyes the green of jade, hair the blue-grey of slate, skin as white as gypsum — bares sharp teeth. She's slender, barely taller than the youths she's facing off with; but she growls in her chest like rocks grinding. There's a reason they keep the old stories about trolls and bridges alive.
"Just you fucking wait until my sister gets here!" one says angrily, as they retreat.
"This your bridge?" someone says, a while later, and the troll turns round slowly and points both her thumbs at her t-shirt, which has a slogan Sharpied onto it:
NOBODY CROSSES FOR FREE
and finds herself looking someone in the muscular pecs. Her eyes detour to locate biceps the size of her ribcage, before sliding up to an unimpressed face topped with spiral horns.
"This is Goattown," the big woman says. "This isn't the dark ages; you want the bridge, have it. But this isn't the dark ages: leave the fucking kids alone."
"...You're really big," the troll says.
"I am."
The troll's cheek silently twitches a couple of times. Apparently taking her silence as some kind of stubborn answer, the goat-woman holds a hand out between them, and make a circle with her finger and thumb.
"See?" she says, and at the troll's small headshake, eyes glued to the hand, she elaborates: "I think that would nearly fit all the way round your neck. All the way," and she bends just a little toward her, and roughens her voice a little, "if I squeezed a bit."
The troll's cheek twitches a few more times, eyes glued to strong fingers.
"Feel free to shake me down, if you think you can," the goat says. "Leave the kids alone."
"...Deal," the troll says faintly.