Notes:

An extra large drabble from the Mass Effect drabble challenge. Theme: simple life.

Shepard always thought she would hate retirement. Honestly, she never thought she would make it to retirement. Besides the ancient space robots from beyond, there were other wars. Other missions. Other back alley gunfights.

She never thought about keeping chickens on a backward desert moon nor about the pros and cons to hiding extra thermal clips in the well (the hens kept making nests out of them when they were in the coop).

One of the beady eyed little devils was making a slow advance on her seed bag.

"Don't even think about it," she muttered, smacking the ground with her trowel. The hen made a hasty retreat and regrouped with the other featherdusters, scratching in the dirt.

Thane chuckled from his lounger.

"Don't even start, you- extra large sunflower!"

Thane laughed even more at that. He sat up and tipped his straw hat further back on his head. He really did look like an overgrown weed when he wore that hat without his shirt. "You brought this, siha."

"It was a joke," she muttered darkly. He loved that damn, stupid hat.

"It was a gift," he reminded her serenely and patted the goat on the head.

"Hussy." Shepard had a complicated relationship with Bessy the goat.

She was supposed to have been Urz's dinner feast when they had finally finished remodeling the main house to be more varren friendly. Instead of a bloody kill, Bessy headbutted the varren and the two became lifelong friends. Now, Shepard had to deal with them chasing each other through the front garden and cleaning up the scavenged love tokens Urz kept leaving near the goat's little den.

Bessy loved Thane. Like Urz loved her. The hooved monster would follow him into the house and sleep on their bed if given half the chance. They had to make a rule about no pets in the bed when Bessy and Urz would get into bicker fights at 4am about who got to sleep on which master's face.

Koylat had moral objections to the goat. Bessy loved him even more than she loved his father. When ever he would visited the homestead, the damn goat would sneak in through the doggie flap and cuddle angrily at the foot of his bed. Koylat didn't visit that much.

She shook her head and covered her latest plantings with more top soil. It had been shocking to discovery that she didn't have a black thumb; she even liked gardening.

"Siha." Thane squatted down in front of her.

"What, old McDonald? I thought you were sunbathing."

The drell smiled at her then slid his fingers across her check before sliding them into her ever so slightly greying hair. They were both grinning when he leaned forward to press his mouth against hers.

She still loved her Claymore almost as much as she loved Thane, but... she may have started to like this whole retirement thing.