It strikes him as he's running towards her; he's put too much force into the attack. If he hits her....she's so small, she could shatter. There's not pulling his punches, and then there's annihilating her. He can't do that. He needs to train her, not destroy her.

But Volterra knows there's no time for second thoughts on the battlefield. The tiniest indecision can turn the tide of a fight, and changing your mind in the middle of an attack is suicide.

Too late.

At the last moment, he slams on his brakes. As his hooves churn up the ground in a splattering mass of mud and filth, he silently swears at himself for his fucking weakness. His sudden stop causes the muscles of his right foreleg to tense and twinge painfully with the shock of the movement, and he loathes himself for his inability to do what he needs to do. He needs to train her, but how the hell is he supposed to do that when his damn empathy makes him second guess himself? Too hard his strike may have been, but she would have learned from it. It wouldn't have killed her.

He's never intentionally stymied one of his blows before; he's never had misgivings during an attack. Normally, the moment he sets foot on the battlefield he becomes....something else. A monster. Any morals he does have are swiftly smothered beneath a rising tide of rage and hell-bent desire to win; he becomes a sweaty, heaving mass of berserker flesh, a bloody-minded warlord without a care for the innocent skin he's pulverizing. He becomes the beast, fuelled by victory and driven by the feral thrill of domination.

Not here. Because this is Erthë, his usual blind fury hasn't seized hold of him. He hasn't been able to hide his feelings beneath an iron wall of anger like he usually does. There's only his beating heart, the blood that pumps behind his eyes, and his fucking morals.

As it is, she evades him anyway. Even if he hadn't given himself the fighting version of a cockblock, he thinks she would still have got out of the way. "Excellent!" he booms. Given his sudden skid to a halt, her bite sprawls towards the right side of his chest rather than the fleshy skin of his elbow, and because of his jerking movement her teeth only just nip a portion of skin just in front of his right foreleg. It hurts, but it is not crippling. "Good, Erthë. Your teeth are valuable assets in a fight, so use them often. Your hooves, too. Rearing up and kicking out at an opponent is very effective, as is bucking at them."

Volterra does not remain still as he talks. He swings his body to his right, attempting to bring himself face to face with the young mare. There's a gleam in his eye and a slathering of sweat on his body - the day is not warm, but the stress of controlling himself is taking its toll. Still, he is...having fun. He has never had the opportunity to teach anybody before, and he always imagined that he would do so with his own children. This isn't quite the same, but it is still enjoyable in its own way. It is no secret that he loves battle. He adores the slap of flesh, the howl of an injury, the scuffing of hooves on dirt, the reflection of sun off sweat. He even enjoys the pain, the days afterwards when each wound tells a story, the lingering thoughts of victory and the thrill of knowing there is something he is actually good at.

If he can impart one ounce of that joy to Erthë, then he will have succeeded. Fighting isn't just about attack and defense - it's about the raw emotion that comes with each blow, the savage pleasure that only a select few can gain from such a bloody sport.

"Your foe isn't always going to be so kind as to attack just once, however. You need to learn how to handle simultaneous attacks - it requires a swiftness of thought and sharpness of mind. Watch my movements again to guess what I will do, and decide which of my attacks it is safer to take if you cannot evade both. " As speaks, he flings himself forwards again, but instead of leading with his chest he instead leads with his teeth. He attempts to plant a sharp, but not overly brutal, nip upon the filly's velvet muzzle, hoping to bruise the tender area.

Simultaneously, his right foreleg flicks forwards, attempting to smack it into the unicorn's left knee. He does not put enough force into it to break the limb should he hit, but he hopes to make it hurt.
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