"Nope."

"Good. That'd be inconvenient."

And a voice from behind, naturally inaudible to humans at any kind of distance, "You can turn around if you want to save some time. Got one."

"There weren't any orcs in the vicinity," she says, annoyed. 

"So we are heading to the continent, then?"

"No, he says he already got one, but there weren't any nearby."

"Might be lying. Some Others can, and I still don't know what we're dealing with. And if he's not lying there's no penalty for being late to admit he wins."

He is in fact holding a headlike object, both he and it facing their direction.

"We're still going to fetch one," she says, "even if you're a spoilsport. See you soon."

There is for one reason or another no response.

They ride out to the edge of the continent.

It's mostly unoccupied by non-orcs. And dark, but that part doesn't stand out.

Finding and killing an orc is not hard.

Hard isn't the problem. Beheading as a bargaining chip is pretty dark even by magic's standards. There is also a war on, but that just means it isn't out of place.

And flying back with the thing.

She is pretty unbothered by this. She does a lot of hunting. 

When they return, the headlike object is in fact a head. Clearly not a recent acquisition, and there are bite marks on it.

"Not in great condition, but then, it wasn't when the orc was alive either. I've been trying to be a good Elf where it counts."

"I don't know what you mean," she says. "The general criteria for good Elfhood are, like, singing and liking beautiful things."

"No. Well, I'm sure you do those too, but even orcs have that. Elfhood means that." He motions towards the heads.

"I know like two hundred thousand Elves, and the vast majority of them have lived their whole lives, and will, without meeting any orcs."

"The reverse is true of them. It's still one of their defining traits to hate you. Pathetic, really."

"Oh. Uh, my defining traits are that I'm the best shot on the continent I left and plan to be the best one on the one I'm reaching, that I wear white even when it's impractical, and that I am of the King's house. I am good at killing orcs because I have a lot of goals that require it, I don't have anything against them."

"I'm sure the fact that Elves have individual traits will make a lot of difference to them. They're all completely interchangeable for all purposes, of course.

If you still want to know where they are, it's usually everywhere. Higher concentrations the further you go, their fortress is about five hundred miles east and one north."

"I didn't think they'd care. I thought you would, since you seem like you've never met us before and seemed to believe we all hate orcs or something."

"Or something."

"What is it?"

"War's been going on for for a long time, that's one thing. Fighting over territory, at least there's a reason. Then more Elves turn up, and they don't just hold where they are, they slaughter their way through armies of orcs. Rather impressively, too. Three guesses what they do with the bodies, and the first two don't count. Oh, and they consider being an orc worse than being dead. And they enforce that, entirely separately from the fact that they're at war. Maybe you say it's not hatred, but it looks nice and symmetric to me."