Disclaimer: I don't own TVD or TO

Updating rating to M. Warning: human sacrifice; blood and gore.

Welcome back, everyone. I don't have a Beta so please excuse the grammatical and spelling errors. I'll fix them and update the chapters later.

Question: We all know that the Originals go back to the Old World (east) and end up in France by ship. Since Anastasia can't be with them, she'll be traveling through the Continental US (west), up through Canada, and Alaska through the Bering Strait into Russia. She'll move back south into Song Dynasty China.

So what would you, my lovely readers, like to happen? Where would you like her to visit throughout her journey through the past 1000 years of history? Which people should she meet, and where should she live? I'm not very well versed in pre-Columbian America so make your suggestions about the places you want to see. And since we're headed west, not south, there will be no Mayan civilization (the Aztecs and Inca empires don't even exist yet). Anything south of Virginia will not be included. Since we're heading to Alaska, I'll definitely include some Inuit and Yupik peoples native to the region around the Bering Strait, but don't expect anything more than a cameo and some trade between my protagonist and the tribes. I'm not a historian so I'll be using Google for my facts. Sorry if I get something wrong and offend some people. This is supposed to be fun so I'll try not to put anything too controversial on here.

I'm definitely going to include India and travel along the silk road. I want to see the Byzantine empire before its collapse and see the rise of Venice and return to the Americas after Columbus. That's a general map. Anyone who wants to recommend someplace can place them in the review box and we can have detours and see new places we've never seen before.

My Indian readers, please tell me what you want to see about India during the 12th century. Please send in your requests and suggestions.

Read, Review, and Enjoy.


Chapter 4 - Traversing North America in the 11th Century: Canada

Loud. Everything was so loud. Her body felt sluggish. Her throat itched with thirst. Make it stop. She just wanted it all to stop. Stop the chanting. Stop the light. Stop everything. She couldn't find the strength to lift her body.

"My lady." A whisper among the loud chanting voices. A soft voice. A friend. "My lady, please wake up." Aslaug. Aslaug was crying, her tears falling on Anastasia's face. "Lady Anastasia." Her dark eyes finally opened. Her vision was blurry. She was lying on her back and above her was Aslaug's blurry face. As her vision slowly refocused to adjust to the dark night, she saw figures of women standing around her in a circle, chanting loudly in a language she could not understand. There was a circle of torches around them.

"My lady." Aslaug was relieved to see Anastasia awaken. She had fallen asleep in the witch's house. When she awoke, she found herself surrounded by chanting witches and a line of a number of humans being slaughtered around her, their bodies were thrown into a mass grave. Beside her, Anastasia lay asleep and tied down to four wooden posts, her arms and legs wide open, her body completely naked. When she saw the witches starting to kill people, she couldn't help the tears that sprang to her eyes. The natives near the village did not practice human sacrifice so she had never seen such a thing before. She knew that in the Old World, her people had the blood eagle ceremonial killing and some women were often burned with the bodies of their husbands, but she had never seen so many people being killed in one place before. She cried and cried until Anastasia awoke, praying to the gods that she would save her.

"Aslaug..." Anastasia awoke. Her body was still weak and she could not move a muscle. Someone moved into her view. It was the old witch. "What did you do to me? Why?"

"Ah, you foreigners come onto our land, make it your home. It is only fair you too will be sacrificed for our sakes. You are powerful. The herbal sleep spell did not work on you like it did to your friend." The old crone looked at Aslaug who was crying once more. "I had to use barbaric methods to incapacitate you. I am happy it did not kill you before the sacrifice. Do not worry. Your power will go into our... what you call coven. It will serve our people well."

Anastasia furrowed her brow as anger built up in her with every word that came from the old crone's mouth. Anastasia was happy when she met the witch and the witch didn't feel the touch of Death on her. She knew her Father had protected her, shielded her, from the senses of Nature's servants, and she was happy that she would be able to learn more magic. But nothing was as it seemed. She had targeted them. She had planned all of this to capture her. She trusted too easily. And she brought Aslaug into a dangerous situation. How dared she? Anastasia had always been patient and tempered. They were her greatest traits. She did not get angry. She did not hate anyone. From a young age, she learned that people did not react well to emotional outbursts. They were childish. She spoke softly and confidently to prove her point. When someone did cross her, she always carried through with her threats. In the electronic and social world of the 21st century, she would either delete a person's social identity from the internet or air their dirty laundry for all to see.

She could not move so she simply assessed her situation. There was some type of magic keeping her body paralyzed. She could feel it on her skin. She was weak from all the blood loss and she couldn't physically overpower the magic. But, her magic was being suppressed since they thought she was a witch. She turned to look at Aslaug. She was helpless to save herself at the moment so she was unable to help Aslaug.

She watched in her peripheral that after every person the witches killed, they turned their backs to face away from the circle to continue their long chant. They turned around again and began to chant before another person was killed. And it repeated. "Aslaug, listen and obey," she said to activate her compulsion.

"Yes, my lady," said the younger girl in a monotone voice.

"You will be silent. You will come as close to my mouth as you can and I will bite your wrist. I will break the binding. While they're face away from us, climb into the pit and cover yourself in the dead bodies. I will come for you." Aslaug was still crying but she couldn't disobey Anastasia's compulsion. She shuffled over closer to Anastasia's head and wince when she felt the sharp teeth bite into her wrist and drink large gulps of her blood. For the first time, Anastasia drank Aslaug's blood. As her senses returned to her, she focused her hearing on the girl's heartbeat only, stopping when she heard the heart begin to slow. She swallowed the blood, to gain as much strength as she could from it. For a vampire, even a small amount of blood allowed their strength to recover. It was the thirst that forced them to drink so greedily. She bit into the rope that was tying Aslaug's hands, using her canines to easily shred it. "Now, kiss me." Anastasia bit her tongue to gather a bit of her blood in her mouth to transfer to Aslaug in their kiss. She held the kiss until she felt Aslaug swallow so she would heal from her blood loss. With the witches facing away from them, Aslaug jumped into the pit, covering herself with the already dead and rotting bodies.

A while later, the old hag returned. "They took your friend already." She raised the stone knife over her head. "You will never see her again."

Her father's power blazed inside her, slowly overpowering the coven's magic. The paralysis was wearing off but not fast enough. She grasped the old witch's wrist, craning her neck up to look into the old woman's fearful eyes at the feeling of power still emanating from the younger girl's body. "I swear on my Father's name, I will make you pay for this. I will come for you and I will kill you and everyone here tonight." The woman grunted feeling the bones in her wrist grinding together under the girl's strength. The woman stabbed the stone knife hard between her ribs and all she felt was pain. Her grip loosened from the old woman's grasp as she felt the knife moving around, carving her flesh and bones. She screamed. No matter how strong a vampire was, they still felt pain, more so as a new vampire with untrained heightened senses. It was a white-hot pain as blood filled her lungs, giving her a drowning sensation. Her heart was being carved out of her chest. "Father, help me," she managed to whisper before she coughed up blood as her eyes glazed over.

Dark clouds gathered to cover the night sky as lightning struck a tall wooden mast. Water fell from the sky, dousing the torches and everyone on the site in water. The astronomers had told them that it was going to be a clear night, perfect for the sacrifice, but with the rain, all their hard work was washed away. Blood is power. They needed a large concentration of blood in the pit to collect the magic power, but it had been washed away into the dirt because of the sudden storm. The witches groaned and scattered away from the mass grave. Even the old crone looked at the heart in her hand and the body of the dead witch whom she had carved it out of. Her power was like nothing she had ever felt and she wanted it for herself. She dropped the heart beside its owner and walked away. The only thing of value she got from the young witch was that lovely bluestone ring. What a waste.

The heart burst into a small blue flame that burned in the rain until the heart was nothing but ash and dust.


Anastasia rose from among the dead bodies, standing upright, her head toward the sky as the rain washed her body clean of the blood and filth of the dead. Looking at the sky, she knew it was the next day. It took a whole day for her heart to grow back. It was day now but the clouds had blocked the sun, which was the only reason she had not burst into flames when the morning came.

She was hungry. She picked up some of the dead bodies and drained them of all the blood they had left in them. She had made a promise to that old crone and she planned to deliver. She would kill her and every person in that coven of witches. She remembered their scents and the feel of their magic on her skin. She would find all of them and kill them. Once she had her fill, she focused her hearing to find the one heartbeat among the dead. She found the girl unconscious but alive. Her heartbeat was that of a human and Anastasia breathed a sigh of relief.

In a flash that the human eye could not register, she left the city and ran toward the other side of the Mississippi river where Dag and Jorunn were waiting for her.

Dag turned his head away when he saw the nude Anastasia while Jorunn began to question her worriedly. Anastasia simply placed the bloodied Aslaug in the carriage and said, "Take care of her, please." Before they could register what had happened, she left to return to the city for her revenge.


The old witch needed to talk to her coven sisters to discuss the next steps they would take since the sacrificial ritual had failed. The moment she stepped into the coven meeting house, she gasped in horror at the sight of the dozens of dead bodies lying all around. Her sisters whom she had known since she was a girl, and the young witches in training she had known since they had been babes were all dead as far as she could see in the dim light of the fireplace. Her entire coven had been slaughtered. Heads and hearts were thrown about the room in a fest of running blood and organs. She could feel the strong magic that had remained in the place due to the violent ways they died. Tears filled the old woman's eyes.

She then heard the sound of lips smacking together before the was a slurping noise. The old witch brightened the fire around the room. Her big eyes grew as large as saucers when she saw the image of a woman in a white chemise with her face moving in the neck of one of the witches. She could not understand what was happening as she could only see a mess of black hair. The slurping stopped and the body dropped. The woman in white raised her head to reveal Anastasia with the face of a demon, red eyes with bulging black veins under them, and lips red with blood. It was like nothing she had ever seen before. The young witch she had killed not a day before, who was supposed to be dead, had returned in the shape of a demon to take her revenge. The old crone trembled in fear, opening and closing her mouth like a floundering fish. "Y- yo... you... wh-wha... what are you?" Her voice squeaked when Anastasia stood up in her thin white undergarment that had been dyed red in the blood of her sisters.

"Me? I told you, didn't I? That I would kill you. I'm the spirit of vengeance and I've come to collect." She flashed in front of the old witch who screamed and fell on her bottom on the ground. She didn't have any time to think as she forgot about using her magic as she truly believe she stood before the vengeful spirit of the young girl she had killed.

Anastasia bent down to face her. "I don't feel like drinking your blood and I'm not one for torture, so I'm just going to rip your heart out." Her hand broke through the old lady's chest, through her ribs, and grasped her heart. "Like you did mine." With one fluid movement, she removed her hand from the old witch's chest with her heart in hand. She dropped the heart beside the old lady's body that had fallen on the ground. Anastasia pulled her daylight ring from the old lady's finger, sliding it back onto her left ring finger where it had been since she made it.

As she turned around to leave the house, a spark of blue flame ignited under her feet, spreading around the room with each step she took. The fire quickly crawled up the walls to the ceiling as the entire house was engulfed in flames. Spirits of witches tend to linger in the places they died violently. Anastasia couldn't allow anything about her to become known to the spirits of the Other Side, so her blue flames burned not only the bodies of the dead but also their spirits. As Klaus would learn, witches, dead or alive, were a pain in the ass. Anastasia returned to the old witch's small house to find her close neatly folded on top of a wooden table beside the witch's grimoire. She removed the bloody chemises, washed her body in the rain before she returned to dress in her own clothes. And everything was as it should be.


Following the flow of the Mississippi river, Anastasia pulled the carriage northward. After making sure that Aslaug was physically safe, although traumatized, they all just wanted to leave the city as far behind them as they could along with the horrid memories. She preserved their fruits and vegetables with the spell she learned from the old witch before she went on her way.

After the conflict with the witches of Cahokia, she barely stopped, pulling day and night. America had always been beautiful. Even in the 21st century, she could see many of the vistas that had been preserved by the government as she walked through American history. But unlike the narrative that had been pushed that the continent was relatively empty and peaceful, there were many people living in the Great Plains regions. To Anastasia, there were too many people around. Of course, more people meant a constant source of blood for her, but she hadn't learned much of anything about Native American cultures in pre-Columbian America, so from one village to another, she had no idea what to expect. She'd definitely feel more at home in Europe.

Oh, she also forgot that she was in werewolf country. The moment she smelled them, she knew. They smelled like wet dogs, and she was sure they could smell that she wasn't entirely human either. She locked eyes for a moment with the pack around their campfire - she could hear them growling menacingly - before she turned away and continued northward. The Mississippi river was behind her and before long, she reached a large body of water that looked like an inland sea: Lake Superior. Almost to Canada. As she looked up at the night sky, she saw that the full moon was almost upon them. Like they had done back in the village, throughout their journey, they had taken shelter every full moon since they set off. They hadn't run into werewolves before. The werewolves they had run into days back had been tracking them while keeping their distance. They took shelter as they had always done. On the side of a sheer cliff at the edge of Lake Superior, Anastasia carved a cave into the cliff so the werewolves wouldn't be able to get to them in their wolf forms. They locked themselves into the cave with their carriage before sunset to wait out the night.

"Do you think they were tracking us?" Jorunn asked as she caressed her protruding belly. She laid back on a makeshift cot of fur and fabric raised off the cold ground.

"I don't know," Dag said. "I hear some wolves move when the seasons change. Summer is approaching. They could just be migrating north."

"We'll stay in for tonight," Anastasia said. "If they're still tracking us by the next full moon, I'll take care of it."

"Are you sure?" Jorunn asked worriedly. "I know you're strong but the men... when they turn into wolves, they lose all control."

"I'm sure. My kind was created to be stronger than the wolves. And I'm immortal so even if they kill me, I won't stay dead."

There was silence before Aslaug asked, "Is that what happened in the city? I know that they killed you. I didn't see it, but I heard it. I couldn't move because you told me not to"

"Yes. I'll explain everything about my creation," Anastasia said. "When Henrik was killed by the wolves, Esther wanted to bring him back to life. When she couldn't find a way, she was urged by Mikael to find a way for them and their children to become immortal so they would never lose a child again."

"They had lost their eldest daughter due to plague in the Old World. It is why we came to this new land," Dag said. He had been part of Mikael's village for years. In the Old World, he and Jorunn had just married when they accompanied his fellow villagers on their quest to find a land free of plague.

"Esther used magic to change an old spell to create an immortality elixir made using special blood made from a supernatural creature known as a doppelganger that has magical properties. They fed it to their remaining children and Mikael killed himself and his children at dinner. That is when the transition from human to vampire begins. I drank the same elixir and died. When I awoke, to complete the transition, I had to drink blood again. I killed the hunter's friends. If I didn't complete the transition, I would have died within a few hours. Blood gave me life so I need blood to survive. If I don't have blood, I will weaken, shrivel, and mummify. Esther's spell also gave us superior strength, speed, senses because Mikael wanted revenge on the wolves who killed Henrik."

"That's why you said there would be a war between your kind and the werewolves," Jorunn deduced.

"Yes. The spell made us strong and immortal but Nature doesn't like that. There were consequences. One being the bloodlust and the sunlight burns. Esther used the wood of the ancient White Oak tree for life, so only the wood from that tree can kill us. Nothing else can, not even decapitation or-" she turned to look at Aslaug "having my heart carved out. Everything will just grow back."

"Every strength has a weakness. One weakness is Werewolf venom. The wolves have venom in their saliva that is fatal to vampires. There'll be physical weakness, fevers, chills, and hallucinations."

"So you can die if the wolves bite you?" Dag asked.

"No. Like I said, due to Esther's spell, only wood from the White Oak Tree can kill me. However, if I turn someone into a vampire, they can be killed by regular wood to the heart, werewolf venom, decapitation, sunlight, and heart removal."

"So, how would you turn someone into one of your kind?" Aslaug asked.

"The person would have to have a portion of my blood in their body. Then die. They would wake up in transition. To complete the transition into a full vampire, they'd have to drink human blood." She turned to Aslaug. "But, vampire blood can heal wounds. It's why I gave you my blood after I fed on you during the sacrifice. I didn't know how long it would take for me to heal, so I knew the blood would keep you alive if you didn't have any food or water." Aslaug looked down at her wrist where the bitemarks had long since healed. "I'm sorry, Aslaug. Because of me, you were forced to endure something so horrifying and I forced you to drink my blood. If you had died, you would have been turned into a vampire against your will."

After a long silence between them, Aslaug finally spoke, "It's alright, my lady. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be alive at all. You protected me when Mikael fed that girl to his children that morning. It could have been me. Like you said, Mikael started a war between werewolves and vampires. I'm sure most of the village is destroyed by now and we could have died if it wasn't for you. I know that you only fed on me because you didn't have a choice and you forced me to hide to save my life. Thank you for all that."

Anastasia lowered her head, her thick hair covering her face before she raised her head to look at her friend. She pulled Aslaug into a hug as she wept, "Thank you. Thank you for being my friend."


The wolves were still on their trail as another full moon approached. They found a long winding cave system to shelter them and their carriage well for the full moon. Unfortunately, the cave system had multiple entrances and a small pack of wolves had also sought shelter in the caves. These wolves were peaceful and thought that the caves were safe and large enough for them to shift without the possibility of killing anyone.

A loud growl echoed around the cave followed by a guttural scream. In an instant, Anastasia flashed from Aslaug and Jorunn, following her senses to Dag's location.

He dropped the torch and pulled out his sword when he came to be surrounded by the pack of werewolves. The beasts growled at him as they encircled him, drool falling from between their teeth. Cold sweat fell down his back, but he was a Viking and he stood firm, studying his enemies. With a slash of his sword, he cut down one of the wolves. But, he was only one man and could not stand against eleven more animals with sharper senses, greater strength, and speed. One of the wolves lunged and bit into the flesh of his thigh before another bit his sword-hand. He dropped the sword as a wolf tackled him to the ground. The wolf snarled, baring his teeth in Dag's face, pressing on his ribs with its superior strength.

As the wolves lunged at him to finish him off, a flash of color and a sickening crack resounded before everything fell silent. Anastasia stood before Dag like a shield as she held the dead bodies of two wolves under her arms. "Dag, back up," Anastasia said in a low voice without facing the man. His entire body radiated with pain as blood flowed from his wounds, painting the cave ground. The wolves' powerful teeth punctured major arteries and ground his bones to pieces. With his good leg and arm, he pulled his body back toward the direction Anastasia had come from. Aslaug came running to him, wrapping her arm around him before Jorunn arrived as she found it increasingly difficult to move with her protruding abdomen.

She gasped when she saw her husband's battered and bleeding form. Tears formed in her eyes. She had seen many similar injuries in the village, the worst of which was the young Henrik.

"Jorunn, Aslaug, take Dag back to the camp and treat his injuries. I'll take care of things here." They didn't need to be told twice as they saw Anastasia drop the bodies of the wolves she had killed. They turned around as sounds of growls and yelps filled the chamber of the cave as they left Anastasia to kill the wolves.

Jorunn's eyes were fresh with tears by the time they arrived back at their camp toward the entrance of the cave. Dag had lost a lot of blood over the short distance over and his skin had lost much of its pink color. He could barely keep himself up as Aslaug helped him to lie on the ground. The young girl immediately went into the carriage to find herbs to treat his wounds.

While Aslaug prepare the herbs, Jorunn undressed her husband to see the extent of his injuries. She had wiped her tears as she washed her husband's wounds with the warm water on the fire that was meant to be used for their food. When she cleaned all the blood from his skin, she saw the deep gashes caused by the wolves' serrated teeth. She looked at the injuries on Dag's arm and chest to find they were quickly turning purple. She almost broke down but bit back her sobs. She controlled her emotions by keeping her focus on the task at hand.

"Jorunn," he coughed. Just saying her name was excruciatingly painful. Each breath shot pain all through his body. "Darling, look at me."

Aslaug applied the medicinal salve she had prepared over his thigh. Jorunn raised her head to look at her husband. She cleared her throat once and said, "Yes?" She pulled at the corner of her lips to try to smile, but it was obviously forced.

"Everything will be alright, sweetheart. You don't have to worry about me," he said through the pain.

"You fool. You're the one who's always making me worry," she said. Tears welled in her eyes again. She inhaled deeply as she wrapped the tourniquet over the salve.

He tried to laugh but it came out as a wry cough. "I'm sorry, my dear. I'm sorry I won't be able to be with you and our child." He reached over to touch her belly with his uninjured arm.

"No! No. You're going to be just fine," Jorunn said. "When the lad- Anastasia comes, she will give you her blood to heal you and you will be fine." She smiled a pure genuine smile for the first time as she realized she had spoken the truth. Her husband could be saved.

Dag's coughs grew harsher before he began to cough wildly. "Sweetheart, what's wrong?" Jorunn asked. Each breath entered his body with a harsh wheeze. No one knew a rib had dislodged and punctured the outer sack of the lung. With each breath he took, air filled the sack around the lung, collapsing his left lung.

Covered in wolf blood from head to toes, Anastasia appeared between them. She saw the bruise on his chest and heard the air build up in his chest cavity until he stopped breathing. His heart slowed. Anastasia bent down beside the old man. "Aslaug, interlock your fingers with one hand on top of the other and press two knuckles deep into his chest." She demonstrated chest compressions to Aslaug and counted for the girl to get the rhythm.

"Why aren't you doing this yourself?" Jorunn asked.

"If I do, my hand will go straight through his chest due to my strength."

Jorunn clung to Anastasia, not minding the blood on her body. "Please, help him."

"I'm trying." Anastasia explained, "He's not breathing and his heart is slowing. We need to force his heart to pump my blood through his body." She listened closely as the heart beat in tandem with Aslaug's compressions. Anastasia turned to Jorunn and looked her straight into the eyes. "He's already lost a lot of blood and his lung is collapsed. My blood won't be able to repair all of that damage the wolves did. If I force him to drink my blood, he will die. He'll be in transition. He'll turn into a vampire. You have to make the decision, Jorunn."

Jorunn shook her head as tears fell down her face. "I don't care. Vampire or human. I just want him to live. I want my child to have his father."

"Alright." Anastasia pulled Dag's head back, opening his mouth wide before she bit deeply into her wrist. She placed the wrist into his mouth, forcing her blood down his throat as Aslaug used her chest compressions to force his heart to pump the blood through his body.


Anastasia held Jorunn's left hand while Aslaug held her right hand as they stood beside the pyre watching Dag's body burn in the white flames that danced in the night. Strangely enough, it was Anastasia who was in tears. She had known the man for only a few months and yet she'd become fond of him. She was always alone. She didn't have friends or lovers. She preferred to live inside her house, working on her computer, or travel to see the world. She didn't make connections easily, but the ones she did make, she valued greatly.

Dag had become an important part of her life. He trusted her, followed her, and Anastasia couldn't help but feel as though she had failed him and Jorunn by letting him die. She should have known better.

After she had fed Dag her blood, they waited the rest of the night for him to wake as a vampire. Aslaug volunteered her blood in a wooden bowl to help Dag complete the transition. He swallowed the first sip and complete the transition however, he violently coughed up the second sip. Unexpectedly, when the werewolves bit him, their venom entered his bloodstream. Although harmless to a human, once Dag completed his transition into a vampire, the wounds where the wolves bit him reopened. The venom in his blood was killing him as a vampire. He couldn't keep any more blood down.

At first, Dag was mild. As a newly transitioned vampire, his hunger was excruciating. No matter how many times they tried, his body rejected the blood. Anastasia had to explain to them that Dag was going to die because of the werewolf venom. She had to explain all the symptoms. First, it was the necrotizing tissues around the punctures. Then came the fevers and chills as the body tried to fight the venom. Later came the hallucinations. Dag spent his last day in a semi-lucid state. He would be talking to Jorunn one second, talking about their younger years when they were courting and hallucinating about when they were newlyweds before he lunged for his pregnant wife's throat. Anastasia was the one who was always nearby to separate Dag from Jorunn. She spent most of the day snapping his neck to keep him incapacitated so Jorunn could stay close to him.

The last few hours turned him rabid. All he wanted was blood as he snarled and lunged for the humans repeatedly. It was just before his death that his sanity returned to him. With a wooden spear through his stomach, he told Jorunn his last will.


Do I write too formally? Sometimes I feel like when I write stories, I write as though I was writing an essay. I have difficulty finding the voice of the different characters.

Note: There is archeological evidence that the Mississippians at Cahokia practiced human sacrifices. (Human Sacrifice in the Late Prehistoric American Bottom: Skeletal and Archaeological Evidence — University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign). In my story, the witches are using part of the sacrifice to steal another's power to increase their coven's magic, sort of like the Harvest the New Orleans witches performed.

I was going to write a whole scene where Anastasia had a friendly conversation with the werewolves about their intentions and staying out of each other's way as they passed peacefully to their different destinations. Then, I remembered that they probably don't even speak the same language. She's picking up some words from the natives she encounters but that hardly makes a language and America was full of different languages before the arrival of the Europeans.

Originals can't be killed by anything but White Oak or the power of at least 100 witches. So I'm thinking they can probably recover from having their hearts ripped out or their heads cut off. It will simply incapacitate them before the organ grows back (and we know their organs grow back with all those threats of ripping out livers and intestines from the show). So, even if they carved Anastasia's heart out, they didn't use magic to weaken her like Bonnie did to Klaus before Elijah tried to kill Klaus. The magic was just used to paralyze her and Anastasia recovered from drinking Aslaug's blood. Since the witches don't know anything about Anastasia being a vampire, they didn't account for it. Hope that explains it.

Face claims

Anastasia - Banita Sandhu

Aslaug - Alicia Vikander

Jorunn - Joely Richardson

Timeline

January 12th: Henrik dies.

February 10th: Esther casts immortality spell. Esther and Mikael kill their children to turn them into vampires. Anastasia arrives.

March 8th: Esther makes daylight rings for her family. Rebekah meets Anastasia. Anastasia leaves the village.

March 12th: Esther curses Niklaus.

Mid-March: Niklaus kills Esther. The Originals run from Mikael.

March 22: Anastasia reaches the Cumberland Gap. Jorunn is 13 weeks pregnant.

Early April: The Originals take a ship from Vinland to the Old World.

April 19-25: Anastasia arrives at Cahokia. A week later, Anastasia leaves Cahokia. Jorunn is 18 weeks pregnant. (Mystic Falls to Cahokia ~ 840 miles ~ 1.3 months of travel).

June 1001: Anastasia arrives at Winnipeg. Dag dies. (Cahokia to Winnipeg ~ 1000 miles ~ 1.5 months of travel. 23 weeks pregnant).

September 1001: Winnipeg to Wales, Alaska ~ 3317 miles ~ 3 months (36 weeks pregnant)

October 1001: The Originals arrive in Denmark (or somewhere in mainland Europe or Scandinavia).

Spring 1002: The Originals meet the De Martels and Lucien in France.

Thanks for reading.