"...if we hated them and thought killing them a favor, why would we do it?"

Shrug. "Maybe there are other things Elves care about other than whatever's worst for orcs. Singing or beauty or taking orc land. Or maybe no one actually thinks they're better dead than alive and it's convenient to say it because it lets them feel like good people.

But I can assume orcs and Elves will act horrible to each other, and I don't really have to care about what's on the inside of your heads even if I do end up being wrong."

"Yeah. Fair. Alright. We'll decorate my territory, you'll be welcome to visit it."

Third call?

"Well, glad I stopped by. And I consider my challenge answered." He leaves, walking on snow rather than making a sudden disappearance to match the entrance.

That was three. You should be able to claim victory; it's been longer than Findekáno's took and that one worked.

So she claims her demesne. It does work. She smiles broadly. "Orc-hunting?"

"Now? I guess it does have to get done."

"Not many wars where you're from, huh?"

"Yes, lots. No, none at all, not one. Depends how broadly you mean where I'm from."

And flying continentward. Flying over a wide corridor of owned territory reaching from one end of the Ice to the other, though it's still visually indistinguishable even to people with superpowers.

"I meant that you were personally familiar with."

"Haven't been in one.

Actually, what we're doing right now might be illegal on my world even as part of a war."

"Really? Why?"

"My world has had a lot of wars. Somewhere along the line a bunch of treaties started listing things nations agreed to at least pretend not to do. Weapons we don't use, mistreating prisoners, unnecessary collateral damage. I don't know if marking your border with heads is considered a war crime or not, but it's definitely the kind of thing that convinces other countries yours is the bad guy."

"I don't think we're at much risk of giving off that impression in this fight."

"I mean, if Earth has treaties against this it's probably because it would get extra attention for looking gratuitously evil. Not that looking worse than the Enemy is an actual risk."

Wars on Earth very rarely involve breaking continents. If they did, there wouldn't be any treaties about it because there wouldn't be enough surviving countries.

"We should've invented treaties against killing civilians and stealing their boats. It just didn't come up much. We'd never had a war before."

"Yeah, I think having had a lot of wars was an important part of that."

They spot some orcs, by Elven eyesight, not all that much farther on.

I think I should land. We could kill them more safely from up here, but if we're lucky the Enemy doesn't know about the flight yet.

Yeah, sounds good. Won't be that dangerous anyway. We have better vision and I'm almost certainly a better shot.

Depending on number of orcs and how much they depend on heat vision, it should be some degree of easy to get down without being spotted. Especially with magic rendering them un-spotted when necessary.

You have better vision. I'd be surprised if I do.

It's my demesne, I'll do the shooting. And she does. And the beheading, rather cleanly.

This probably isn't an errand they can do in one trip, but it's inadvisable to lean hard on a demesne right away anyway. Time isn't a problem.

Irissë's busy being very good at killing things, and the orcs don't seem to be posing much of a threat depite their efforts. Findekáno, think you could be distracted for a minute?

Yes.

So, Artanis' condition for not killing Fëanáro is that he put Maitimo in charge of their army.