Arthur x Hazel

Arthur x Hazel is the het ship between Arthur "Wart" Pendragon and a girl squirrel from the The Sword in the Stone fandom.

Canon
In order to teach Arthur of the survival instincts of squirrels, he transformed both of them into squirrels to live them out first hand. However, an actual squirrel paid attention to Arthur and imprinted on him. She first made herself noticable by blocking Arthur's path on a branch, locking eyes with him. Arthur would try moving past her, but she was too quick for him. When Arthur asks what's the matter with that one, Merlin notes that she's a girl squirrel and winks at Arthur noting that she's a "redhead" too. Arthur didn't quite understand and tried pushing her away, but then she pushed him instead while giggling. When Arthur tried to make a run for it, she just grabbed him by the tail and pulled him towards her, wrapping him in her own tail. Merlin tells Arthur that there's no rhyme or reason to her behavior: She has fallen in love with him because she's a "she" and he's a "him", nothing else matters in her choice in a forever mate. Arthur finally realizes what's going on, trying to tell her that he's not a squirrel, he's a human boy, but if she listened, she refuses to. She then grabs his face and kisses him three times, leading to Arthur hiding behind Merlin's tail. Merlin is of no help to him, as soon as she "asks" where Arthur went, he reveals Arthur's hiding spot.

Merlin is very amused by their antics and starts singing a little song about love, but soon gets a taste of his own medicine when an older squirrel falls for him as well. Meanwhile, a wolf was watching the spectacle intendly, waiting for one of the squirrels to fall so it could grab a bite. That squirrel happened to be Arthur, the girl squirrel stops fooling around immediately and charges to his rescue. Just as the wolf was ready to eat Arthur, she bites its leg and leads it away from him, luring it into a hollow tree stump near a cliff and shoving it down. The squirrel looks after Arthur and starts kissing him when she finds him, glad that he's alive. However, when it's time for Arthur and Merlin to become human again, Merlin manages to shake his admirer off only making her angry. When Arthur is turned back to human, the girl squirrel is shocked with Arthur telling her that he did try to explain. The squirrel hides in her tree and sheds a single tear as Arthur walks away, looking back at her sympathetically. She climbs at the very top of a branch and gives a mournful cry, with Merlin noting that love isn't just wonderful, it can also hurt.

Fanon
With the rest of the movie being loosely connected, naturally, the tragic elements of the squirrels story will stick in the viewer's memory. It is to the point that most fanfiction for a rather obscure/unpopular movie focuses on giving her a happy ending, usually by having Merlin turn her human so she could be with Arthur for good. Most of these stories take direct inspiration from the "Hazel" story from 4chan's /co/ board, which is often credited as being the very first instance of people noticing the character. Said story has helped making an otherwise unimportant nameless side character popular with fans and many still call her "Hazel", even those who haven't read the story.

Since Arthur will marry Guinevere, which is confirmed by the movie only adapting the first part of the Once and Future King series, people have thought that instead of Hazel, the squirrel is actually the movie's take on Guinevere. Others like to ship it alongside Gwencelot, allowing for Arthur to be happy with someone after his wife cheated on him.

Fandom
FAN FICTION